


From the Shadow of Glory

by vilia



Series: Legacy of Glory [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix-It, M/M, Minor Canonical Character(s), Modern Era, Mutual Pining, Mystery, Pining, Post 5X13, Reincarnated knights and others, Slow Build, Slow Burn Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 84,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vilia/pseuds/vilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“James” has been on a quest to figure out who he really is for as long as he can remember, but when he sees a familiar man down the street, everything changes. Now he's sneaking through hospital corridors, rummaging around in other people's homes, and taking an ancient sorcerer to dinner at his mum's. And his life is about to get even more complicated, because one of his friends has just gone missing.</p><p>Inspired in part by the Arthurian tale of Rhitta Gawr, the giant who made a cloak out of the beards of the men he defeated, then demanded Arthur's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Familiar

#### Prologue: Threshold

After miles of wrong turns and retracing his steps, Merlin allowed himself a moment to rest—tipped his head up a fraction, closed his eyes to savor the feel of warm sunlight on his pale skin.  He didn’t worry about his lack of sunscreen.  His age spots and wrinkles hadn’t changed a fraction since he first disguised himself in the form of an old man to save Gwen from the pyre.

The smell of the powder he’d needed back then to create the enchantment, the rough fabric of the robe he’d borrowed from Gaius to cover his usual blue shirt, brown trousers, the confused look on Arthur’s face when he asked if they’d met before…  Even after so long, the memories came to him with little effort.  His decade with Arthur was just as fresh in his mind as his most recent 10 years.  It was the intervening time that got jumbled about and blurred together in his head.

A kid brushed past Merlin’s elbow, jostled him back to the present.  The streets before him were crowded, over-full.  It was the first nice day of spring and the people of Cardiff were out to enjoy the weather.

Merlin hadn’t planned to be here today.  He was supposed to be out in the countryside, driving the deserted, barely-there road that marked, near enough, the border between what was once Camelot and Nemeth.  The inaccuracies in the route were of little importance; no one but Merlin knew the difference. 

It had taken a fortnight to do a full patrol of the border on horseback if there was no trouble.  It could be done in a single day by car if you were dedicated.  He walked parts of the route to make up the time difference, took detours because patrols with Arthur had never gone to plan.

The journey was something he did every year, a ceremony of sorts.  One of many rituals he’d developed to help pass the time.  He needed that, especially now. 

The waiting has been harder to bear in recent years than in any time since the early days.  Because Arthur was here _somewhere_.  And even though the population was far larger than he had once thought possible, it shouldn’t be this bloody difficult to find a person.  What good was his magic, his wealth of experience, if he couldn’t—

Merlin halted his train of thought; he wouldn’t allow himself to think that way.  Couldn’t.  It was just the fatigue wearing on his patience again.  What he needed was a nice long sleep, but he no longer had the time to spare.

What he could do was have faith in Arthur.  Today’s intended detour destination was just one of many places where Arthur had earned his trust.

Arthur had given this area over to Nemeth years before he died.  Back then, if he’d turned toward the sea, he would have seen that overgrown hedgerow, that labyrinth where Arthur had been willing to die for Camelot, for Merlin.  That spot along the beach was a port now.  That’s where he’d been heading before he’d been forced to pull over, stash his vehicle in a car park, and start walking.

Something called to him, tickled at his senses, like a symphony played at the threshold of hearing.  Only it wasn’t his auditory system that was straining.  The thrumming was subtle, but incessant—powerful.  ~~~~

Merlin stopped midstride.

Down the street was a man with Arthur’s silhouette, with Arthur’s gait.  He forced his breath to follow its regular pattern, willed his heart to stay calm.  He’s been through this before.  So many times.  Sitting down to dinner in a pub, riding the Tube beneath London, or meandering the streets of a sleepy village, he’d catch a glimpse of that specific shade of hair at the proper height or hear a voice with the right tone and the cadence to match.  But whether he rushed forward or crept in for closer evaluation, the result was the same.  Hope would flare bright, only to die down the instant he realized all the other features were wrong.  It would take weeks, months, sometimes years to restore that low burn that kept him going all this time, through the trials and disappointments, the relentless centuries.

He held back, observed the man.  There was a petite woman attempting to cling to him.  Merlin took that as a good sign.  Arthur always had attracted more than his fair share of admirers.  The man shrugged her off, which was even better because Arthur had never displayed much interest in romance.  Not unless magic or Gwen was involved.  Even then, he’d been more than just a little hopeless.  Ordering your servant to fetch your love flowers has never been the epitome of romantic gestures. 

Merlin rose up on his toes to look around the other pedestrians, tried to stamp down the surge of optimism that had already begun.  Was it his imagination that made him think the magic call was coming from the same direction as the Arthur shaped man and the clinging woman?

The couple was watching him now and he squinted for a better view.  These old man eyes were useful for a great many reasons, but their ability to see detail at a distance was not one of them.

He could use his _other_ sight, but apart from the ever present risk of being seen with glowing eyes, which was worse now than ever with the prevalence of video phones—that was not something he needed posted online—he risked detection by whoever had set the enchantment. 

When the man looked away, Merlin’s will crumbled and he dashed forward to a space between two buildings where he hoped to find enough privacy to restore his youthful vision.

#### Chapter 1: Familiar

“That old man is staring at you, James.  It’s creepy.”

He didn’t need to ask whom she meant.  The man with the long, white beard stood in the middle of the pavement on the opposite side of the road.  He was too far down the street to make out more than his basic features, but he was definitely looking in their direction.  

“He’s not staring.  See how he’s shifting about?  Looks more like he’s trying to decide if he knows one of us.”

“He’s making me nervous.  Let’s go into this shop while he passes by.”

“There’s nothing creepy about him.”  There was something familiar about the man’s frame, his posture.

This wasn’t the first time a stranger triggered such a feeling—that was the sole reason he was here with Veronica this afternoon.  It certainly had nothing to do with enjoying her company.  She was pretty to be sure, but God was she annoying.  Spending time with her was a chore but if she could help him figure out why some people triggered that odd sense of recognition, it would be worth his time.  The man down the street, he was different. 

“James?  James!”  He tore his gaze away from the old man long enough to get her to stop calling him that.  It wasn’t even his name.  Not his real name anyway.  “Look at these dresses.”  Her pout turned into an expression he could only assume was meant to be seductive.  “I could try them on for you.” 

He ignored her, looked back to the place where the old man had been and found that section of pavement empty.  He widened his view.  A flash of white pulled his gaze to where the man ducked into an alleyway.

“I know I said window shopping, but it won’t hurt to just go inside.  Please?  James?”  She giggled.  “Are you imagining how irresistible I’d look?  You naughty boy.”  He cringed.

He needed to have that talk with her again.  ‘We are _not_ a couple.  We will never _be_ a couple.’  He’d stopped being delicate ages ago.  She didn’t listen.  She was undaunted, utterly convinced that one day he was going to wake up and realize he was madly in love with her. 

When he still didn’t respond, she put on her most extreme pout.  He could see it out of the corner of his eye.  

“James?”

Would it be strange if he followed the man?  He looked too old to have got far.  If he didn’t want to lose—

A much younger man popped out of the same ally into which the old man had fled.  Despite the distance, the man locked eyes with him and if the old man had triggered a sense of familiarity, then it was almost as if he knew this man.  The certainty of it washed over him, filled his chest near to bursting.  If only he could see him a bit closer, maybe hear his voice, he might actually remember something.  Something from _before_. 

That had been a hard day.  And not because he’d been a child wandering alone in the middle of the Welsh countryside.  No, the hard part had been feeling like the whole world was wrong somehow—a deep wrongness that went beyond the fact that he hadn’t understood a word anyone said.  Having nothing for comparison, anything should have been acceptable to his mind.  If everyone else had sported green skin and scales, he would have had every reason to assume that he was the oddity. But even today, it was as if the world was too full or he was too empty, missing more than just memories. 

Before he knew what he was doing, his feet were compelling him down the pavement, toward the younger man with the dark hair.  The other man stood still a moment, hands clasped to his mouth, before scrubbing at his eyes and striding forward to meet halfway. 

“James.”  Veronica grabbed his arm, but he shook her off, didn’t stop walking.  

Cars streamed by on the road to his left.  They partially obscured his view of the familiar man, but he kept his eyes on him as best he could, taking only the minimum time needed to look away and make sure he wasn’t going to run into anything. 

“James!”

This constant “James-ing” was going to drive him mad.  After 15 years of being addressed by the name he should have got used to it, but he hadn’t.  In fact, the older he got, the more annoying it became. 

“Enough!”

Veronica took a step back.  He wasn’t proud of the piece of himself that was pleased by her reaction, but the James thing was especially annoying coming from her—as though he expected her to know better.  It was a completely unfair expectation.  Even he couldn’t remember his true name.  

With circumstances as they’d been, he’d had no choice but to accept the name the head of the orphanage chose on his behalf.  The people there gave him more than just a fake name.  With the help of a series of doctors, they’d decided that he’d been nine years old and gave him a fake birth date to match.  

All this was settled before they even started teaching him English.  They claimed whatever he’d spoken before was a horrible mutilation of Welsh, an opinion that led to a number of theories about his life previous to that point that included neglect, abuse, and isolation.

Those theories had never bothered him.  Whatever happened to him, he suspected it had something to do with the scar below his heart.  Obviously he’d been injured at some point.  Perhaps he’d been in a coma for years.  That would explain the lack of memories.

When he and the familiar man were suitably close, standing at opposite corners of an intersection, he made a series of hand motions to indicate that the other man should stay in place and that he would cross the two intersecting roads that separated them.  The gestures made perfect sense to him but he realized belatedly that they weren’t what could be called intuitive.  Across the street, the familiar man gave him a confident nod and took a step back from the street to wait.

James jogged across the intersecting street then turned to his left to wait for the traffic signal to change so that he could cross High Street as well.  This close, he could see the other man was beaming.  The grin amplified prominent cheekbones and though he could not recall ever seeing such features, nothing had ever looked so familiar.  There was a time when even his own refection had been foreign to him, but not this man.

He took a moment to consider the possibility that this wasn’t what he was hoping.  That maybe his mind was playing tricks on him and this bloke across the street was just some sort of crazed madman who grinned at anyone that met his gaze. 

“James, wait for me!”  Veronica’s high heels thundered off to his side but he didn’t bother looking at her.  The light was turning.  Traffic trickled off and a pair of cars pulled to a stop on his right.  Somewhere in the distance, a horn blared.  He paid it no mind and stepped into the street.

The familiar man looked away for a second and when he turned back, started to say something.  James indicated with a hand up to his ear that he couldn’t hear and suddenly the man was yelling.  It made no difference.  Not with Veronica screeching at him to slow down from five paces behind and the rumble of traffic to his left and that stupid driver still laying on his horn.

The familiar man pointed up the street, but James was passing in front of a van and didn’t have a good view.  He stopped to make sure something wasn’t wrong, tried to peek through the vehicle’s windows.  All he saw was an overabundance of flower arrangements and balloons packed into the cargo space.  When he turned back to resume his journey across the street, he found the dark haired man sprinting toward him.  The man didn’t have far to go.  It was three lanes, one for parking and two for travel, both one way heading west and he was just entering the center of the middle lane. 

Time is supposed to seem slower in an emergency. Something about adrenaline and the speed at which the brain processes information.  He’s experienced the effect before, on that first terrifying day where his memories began and since then many times at work. And so it wasn’t surprising that when he finally saw what was happening, his feet felt rooted in place even though he knew he was turning and stepping back to avoid the collision.  He was so focused on the imminent collision, he barely noticed the familiar man continuing toward him, arms outstretched.  He never felt the man’s hands touch his chest, but they must have because he was pushed backward out of the collision path just as the tipper truck with the blaring horn ploughed into the back of the vehicle he had been walking in front of. 

The familiar man wasn’t so lucky.  Propelled forward by momentum, the van struck the man on his left side, sent him flying into the intersection like a wayward bowling pin.


	2. Fragment

A single cloud floated across the over bright sky.  It had an odd shape, like a wyvern, but with only one wing.

Someone let out a groan.

Had he accidentally fallen asleep here? 

His head ached.

Where was _here_?

The wyvern shaped cloud blurred as it drifted in front of the sun and the world dimmed.  James blinked. Logic came easier now that it wasn’t so bright.  He needed to get up.  That groan had come from his throat and he was imagining long extinct beasts in the clouds—neither was a good sign.

The roadway was warm against his fingers and his heels scraped across the tarmac as he forced himself to sit, then stand.  He stared at the ground until he felt steady enough to look up.

Reality smacked him hard across the face; the intersection was chaos.  Traffic stood at a standstill and people rushed into the street yelling. A solitary yellow balloon slipped out of the florist’s van through a broken window and floated into the sky to his right.  He turned to his left a bit too fast, making his head spin. Ignoring the sensation, he threw his body into motion as a scream ripped from his throat.  The man who just saved his life lay crumpled at the edge of the intersection’s southbound travel lane.   A blue Focus idled with its front bumper less than a foot from the man’s motionless form.  The woman he assumed was the driver stood rummaging through her purse as he approached. 

He stumbled to an awkward stop and dropped to his knees, heart hammering, hands trembling.  The familiar man was on his side, face toward the road, long limbs sprawled across the ground.  His fingers flexed of their own accord when he placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and he was distracted for a moment by the feel of bone and warm muscle beneath the man’s thin green shirt.  Then his training from work asserted itself and he opted instead for a gentle shake.  He could hear his instructor’s voice drilling emergency procedures into his head.  _After assessing the scene for safety, determine the victim’s level of consciousness._

“Come on, Mer—” He froze. What was he saying?  He tried again.  “Come on, mate. You okay?”

When he received no response, he put his ear down to the man’s head to listen for breathing.  With all the commotion from the accident, it was hard to hear anything.  Then the man’s limbs began to move and he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

He directed the driver of the blue car to call an ambulance. She must’ve had the same idea as she was already jabbing at the screen of her phone.

The injured man groaned and tried to roll himself to his back.

“Don’t move.  You’re going to be okay.”  He stilled his hand, surprised to find it wandering about the area between the man’s neck and upper arm, and used it to hold the man in place. 

Beside him, the Focus driver began answering questions about the accident in a wavering voice.  Location, number of people injured, severity of injuries.  “One was a pedestrian.  God, I almost ran him over myself.  I don’t know how I managed to stop in time.  The light was green.  Oh God!”

In his momentary distraction, the injured man tilted his head up and when he’d turned enough that James could see the man’s face again, this time so close, a flash of memory sparked to life. 

The edges of his vision blurred white and the haze framed dark hair, sharp cheekbones made all the more conspicuous by upturned lips, and blue eyes that looked ready to cry.  The image itself was a lot to take in, but it was more than just the visual stimulus; it was a whole tumult of sensation.  Resignation, comfort, exhaustion, and a fierce sense of…fondness, of attachment, to the man who bore that face.

The memory was so powerful, he lost the strength in his legs and sat back on his heels, so fresh, it warred with his memories of waking up late, eating lunch, having his afternoon hijacked by Veronica.  

He took a slow breath to compose himself, then pushed the memory away.  The man might be dying right in front of him.  He didn’t have time for regaining memories, no matter how much he wanted them.  

“Ar…are you hurt?” The words came out as a croak as the injured man reached out in an apparent attempt to touch James on his face.  He snatched the man’s hand out of the air and set it back on the ground to rest.

How could the man possibly be worried about anyone but himself?  “I told you to be still.  You’re going to make your injuries worse.” 

“It really is you. You look so young.”

The man tried to move his arm again. He was obviously a stubborn idiot.

“Don’t you know how to listen?” This time when James grabbed the man’s wrist, he refused to let go. It did the trick. The man’s muscles relaxed beneath his grip as he finally gave up on trying to move.  

“Always listen to you.  You know I never… _listen_.”

James gave the man’s logic a break, considering the circumstances.  At least he was conscious enough to talk. 

“We’re calling an ambulance for you.”

“No.”

“They’ll be here soon.”

“No hospital.  Just…take me home.” The man’s eyes slid shut.  “Key’s in my…”

James smacked him on the cheek, not hard, just enough to rouse him.  “Don’t black out.  Come on.  Stay with me.”

The man let out a few ghosts of breath that were maybe meant to be a chuckle, then reopened his eyes, though only by a fraction.   “I said the same thing to you.  All those years ago.”

“I don’t remember.”

“No.  No, you wouldn’t.”  

A second flash.  The same face, a bit further away, different angle.  The back of the man’s head against his hand as real to his sense of touch as the man’s shoulder and wrist now.  Gratitude.  Contrition.  And that same intense affection. 

The man looked on the verge of passing out again.  He needed to keep him talking, keep him awake.  “Why?”  

“You were too busy.”  The man paused to groan.  “Dying.”

He was fairly certain that was supposed to be one complete sentence and not an indication that the man thought he was dying in that moment.   And though it didn’t make sense considering here he was, obviously _not_ dead, neither did those memories, because apart from the scruff covering the man’s  lower face and the mess of hair covering too much of his ears, the man looked nearly the same today, maybe only a year or two older.  While the first decade of his life was mostly blank, surely he wouldn’t have forgotten something so recent.

The man’s eyes slid shut once again and when another round of slaps failed to wake him, James settled for keeping a close eye on the man’s breathing.  In the distance, the wailing of an ambulance siren began.  Why wouldn’t he want medical care?

 _Take me home.  The key is in my…_ Pocket?

He had just begun patting down the man’s jeans when Veronica stepped up to his side.  “You know him?  What on earth are you doing?”

How could he explain that he was looking for the house keys of a man whose name he couldn’t recall? “No.  That’s why I’m looking for ID.”

“But you called him by name.”

“I didn’t.” 

There was something in the man’s left pocket, but based on the size and shape, it was just his mobile and so he left it in place.  Then he took notice of the messenger bag that was slung across the man’s body. 

“You did.  I heard you yell it after he was hit.  You enunciated quite well, so there’s no mistake.  ‘MER-LIN!’  Just like that.” 

“Merlin?” 

Another memory stole his senses—that of a grassy slope in the middle of a wood.  Pain. The feeling of being too weak to even stand.  The comfort of arms around him, tired arms pulling at his heavy weight, encouraging him to get back on his feet, to not give up. A desperate need to say something important before it was too late.

_It’s too late._

And that was someone else’s hand that he felt beneath his, that he pressed into his chest so the man would relax and just _hold_ him. 

_Merlin._

And _of course_ , this was Merlin.  It seemed impossible that he could have ever forgotten, though even now he only had the name and the image of his face and that jumble of feelings.  He couldn’t explain it.  It would be best if he didn’t have to try.

“Your impression would lead one to believe I’m a teenage _girl_.” She hadn’t even tried to lower the pitch of her voice.   Veronica took the bait and began a string of complaints.  He was so mean and all she wanted was to please him. Etcetera and so forth. That left him free to turn his thoughts back to Merlin’s satchel. 

It contained a myriad of items—a bottle of water, a thick stack of letters held together with a rubber band, an apple, a leather bound notebook… He flipped through the pages quick enough that he only had time to register a word here and there.  Search.  Impatient.  Crystal.  Frustration.

He glanced to the side to make sure Merlin’s chest was still rising and falling.

He was about to place the journal back in the bag when a piece of paper slid out from between two pages as though it were being used as a bookmark.  He turned to the marked page and that’s when he realized those words he’d read without a second thought, had known on sight, weren’t written in English.  He didn’t know what language it was, but he _could_ read it.

_I fear I’ve been looking in the wrong places.  “Rise again” was the phrase used, but what does that mean exactly?_

The bookmark turned out to be the hardcopy of an email to mnore@topmail.co.uk.

_Mr. Nore,_

_I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help when you…_

The ambulance siren was much closer now.  He stopped reading and only skimmed the remainder of the page. At the bottom was a list of ten or twelve names, most of which were crossed out.  The rest of the paper was covered in handwritten notes.  He rustled through the rest of the bag and found a set of keys at the bottom.  As best he could, he hid them in his palm as he removed them from Merlin’s bag and slid them into his own pocket. He glanced back at Veronica to see if she’d noticed but found she was still in the middle of her tirade.

He checked Merlin’s breathing once more.  Then the ambulance was pulling through the mess of vehicles. 

“Merlin.  They’re here.  Everything is going to be all right.”  Merlin didn’t respond and moments later, a pair of paramedics were pushing him out of the way. 


	3. Patient

James hovered over the paramedics as they placed Merlin in a neck brace, maneuvered him onto a backboard, and started an IV.  

Veronica tugged at his sleeve.  “We can leave now.” She stood with her arms crossed, weight on one foot as she tapped the other against the asphalt.

“I’m going to the hospital with Merlin.”

“So you _do_ know him.”

“Of course I know him.”

“Then why did you just say you didn’t?”

“I… I was upset, that’s all.”

“You _said_ you were looking for ID.”

He floundered for a reasonable excuse.  “The hospital might need it.  To pull his records.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re acting very strangely today.”  

He attempted to ignore her.  It was difficult to do, what with her huffing and sighing and stomping her feet.  By the time he was able to get away from her, the paramedics had moved on to assessing the damage to Merlin’s torso.  They’d cut his shirt up the middle and exposed an ugly wound to his left side.  The impact didn’t appear to have broken the skin, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t bleeding.  A massive patch of deep red was already visible as blood pooled beneath the skin.  The older of the two paramedics, a thin man with curly grey hair weighed down by too much gel, felt around at Merlin’s ribs with gloved fingers.  Merlin protested with a whimper and his eyes fluttered open again.

“Glad to have you with us.”  The paramedic gave his patient an encouraging smile.  “Can you tell me your name?”

“Merlin.”  There was a certain thrill in hearing the man say his own name, in knowing his newfound memories were accurate.

“Okay Merlin, do you remember what happened?”

Merlin furrowed his brow, “I was…”  His eyes went wide and he began straining to turn his head—not an easy task when your neck is restrained and you’re strapped to a plastic board.   When Merlin realized his struggles were useless, his eyes darted about until they settled on James.  “I was in an accident.”  A hint of a smile crept onto Merlin’s face.  Maybe it was a side effect of the drugs flowing directly into his bloodstream, but the expression was a little unsettling given the state of his body. 

Merlin answered several more questions designed to assess the level of trauma to his brain, keeping his eyes on James all the while.

“I need you to look straight ahead now.”  The paramedic had a penlight out to check the dilation of Merlin’s pupils.  “Merlin? Look ahead please.”

He gave Merlin a nod.A subtle _do as you’re told._

The man performed the exam and only took a second to compare Merlin’s pupil size with the gauge on the side of the pen.  He didn’t seem concerned with what he found but James wasn’t sure that the lack of reaction wasn’t just a display of outward calm meant to ease his patient.

The younger paramedic crossed in front of him with a gurney.  She pulled a folded blanket off the top of the mattress, covered Merlin’s legs and bare chest, and gave him a quick pat on the leg when she was done. “There you are now, hon.  No need to be cold.”  She sounded more like she was from northern England than Wales. 

She and her co-worker lifted Merlin onto the gurney and wheeled him over to the ambulance.  He trailed along, waiting until they had Merlin loaded before he made his announcement.

“I’m coming with him.”

“We can’t bring extra passengers along. It’s against policy and for good reason,” the older paramedic said.

“I’m sorry, sir.”  The woman even managed to sound like she meant it. 

“Please,” Merlin said, his voice sounding hollow from his place in the back of the ambulance.

Neither of the paramedics looked swayed.  Merlin gave it another try.  “He was injured too.”  He couldn’t see Merlin’s eyes, but somehow he knew the man was giving him a very particular look, willing him to play along.

“I was pushed out of the way at the last second.  Smacked my head hard on the road.”

The younger paramedic moved in front of him and grabbed his head.  He winced more noticeably than he naturally would have when the woman’s fingers found the spot where his head hit the ground.   She thumbed at his eyelids, gave a curt nod to her co-worker, and said, “Come on then. Better safe than sorry.”

He climbed into the ambulance and took a seat on a bench on the opposite side of the younger paramedic.  The older man went round to the driver’s seat and started them on their way to the hospital, siren blaring.

The woman busied herself reading the electronic output of the medical equipment, fiddling with the arrangement of the IV hook, and scribbling some notes on a clipboard.  

“Shouldn’t you be paying more attention to your patient?”

She didn’t even bother looking away from her work to respond.  “There’s not much more I can do for him at this point.  He’s quite stable, considering.” 

He patted Merlin’s arm.  “You’re going to be fine.”

“You can’t get rid of me this easily.” Merlin paused to take a few shallow breaths.  “You’re the one that’s worried.  Not me.”

“I am _not_ worried.”  He knew he sounded indignant as soon as the words were out of his mouth.  He’d been going for confident.

“You are.  Can see it.  You’re...”  He made a vague gesture with a weak hand.  “Always do that when you’re worried.”

The paramedic took that moment to give them her full attention.  “You do look worried.”

James scowled at her.  “Nobody asked for your opinion.”

-x-x-

A burly nurse barred the way when he tried to follow the herd of A&E staff pushing Merlin toward a treatment area.  He was left behind in a quiet corridor, a set of swinging doors in front of him oscillating in smaller and smaller sweeps until they finally fixed into place. 

“Sir?  You’ll need to sign in at the front desk so a doctor can check you over.” 

That wasn’t what he had in mind.  “I’m fine.”

“The paramedics who brought you in seemed to think differently.  Come on, let’s get your name on the list.  We have to prioritize based on the severity of injuries.  It might be a while.”

“I just came for my friend.”

“It’s all right.  I promise if there is any news, we’ll find you.”

The woman herded him down the corridor and into the waiting area on the right.  She handed him a clipboard and he jotted down his legal name, James Craddock.

There were several people in the waiting area in need of medical attention. A baby wrapped in a pink and purple blanket cried while her father tried to soothe her with a quiet lullaby. An old man with a portable oxygen tank coughed until he ran out of air in his lungs.  Then he gasped in a breath and started coughing again. One man had a shop rag pressed against his forehead.  Blood was seeping through so he assumed the man was here for stitches. 

There were a few others like him there as well—people awaiting news.  An older woman napped awkwardly in a chair, her chin to her chest, one arm dangling onto the adjacent seat. He imagined her husband had suffered a heart attack or a stroke. There were two children, a boy and a girl, about the same age crying softly while a woman who he presumed was their mother sat with a blank stare and white knuckles.  Maybe their father had been in the same accident as Merlin.

His mother—his adoptive mother that is—has always praised him for his patience. It was a skill he’d cultivated… Well, he didn’t know when he’d cultivated that particular skill.  It was something he’d always had.  He was good at waiting.  As a child, all his classmates counted down the days to holiday or the minutes left of class.  He’d never bothered.  Events would come as they would and if he could do nothing to hasten their arrival, as was usually the case, then he was content to wait.  He felt none of that usual calm now. ~~~~

He sat down only to stand again a few minutes later and begin pacing.  It didn’t make him feel any better. He felt rather like hitting something.  Maybe take a bat to a stone wall. Feel the vibrations shake his bones.

When the man needing stitches glared at him, he sat down again and forced himself to stay there. It wasn’t easy. He should be _doing_ something!

What seemed like an eternity later, a nurse approached him.  “Mr. Craddock?”

He sprung from his chair.  “Yes, that’s me.  How is Merlin?”

“Merlin?  I’m sorry.  The doctor can see you now.  You were in an accident?”

He wanted to argue, to say he needed to stay right here until he was sure Merlin was okay, but he allowed the nurse to lead him out of the waiting room anyway.  The faster he could convince everyone he was fine, the faster he could go back to his waiting.

They walked down a short hallway where they passed a heavily pregnant woman going the opposite direction.  As he turned into the assessment room, he noticed that she’d stopped to look back in his direction.  Maybe she’d forgotten something on her way out.

Pale blue curtains divided the room into half a dozen treatment areas, each area with a single bed and an array of medical paraphernalia.  The nurse directed him to the area labeled as number five then took his blood pressure, pulse, and temperature before leaving.  He studied the equipment in the room, trying to ignore the smell of bleach tickling at his nose, until a doctor came in and pulled the curtain separating his area from the rest of the room closed.

He was young, but already had a receding hairline.  He introduced himself as Dr. Morris and set about his exam.

“Let’s have a look at you then.  It says here you were involved in an accident.  Is it the one I’ve been hearing about?  That crash on High Street?”

“Can you tell me about another man who was involved?  His name is Merlin.”

“ _Merlin_?”

Was everyone going to question the man’s name today?

“You know something? You must tell me!”

“Sorry.  I didn’t mean to alarm you.  I haven’t heard about his condition.  It’s just… that name.  Something about it seemed to ring a bell.”  The man stood awkwardly a moment, thinking.  “Ah, well.  I’m sure it’s nothing to be concerned about.” 

That was when it flared up.  That reoccurring sense of familiarity.  It wasn’t nearly the same as with Merlin, but it was stronger than the sense he got from Veronica.

The doctor proceeded with his examination, checked the dilation of his eyes, made him recount the events of the crash to ensure his memory was intact.  He left out the important bits, like those visions, and stuck to describing the physical facts—told him how Merlin had saved his life.

“So this friend of yours, Merlin…  He must care for you a great deal.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.  He had been more than a little distracted. He hadn’t stopped to think about Merlin’s side of the story.  How much did Merlin know about him?  Did he know what happened to his real parents?  Would he be able to explain why his memory had been wiped clean as a child?  Had Merlin pushed him out of the way of that van because that’s just the kind of person he is, willing to sacrifice himself for the good of others?  Or was it more personal?

The doctor prodded around at the back of his head.  “Well, Mr. Craddock, you do have a bit of a lump on your skull.  Just the result of some superficial bleeding on top of the bone.  I’ll get you an ice pack to reduce the swelling.  If you experience any dizziness or confusion, or if you develop anything more than a minor headache, I want you to come back immediately.”

“Thank you.”  It was good to be getting out of here so quickly.

“Now, I think I’ll see if I can check on the status of that friend of yours.”

“You can do that?”

That gave the man pause.  “No.”  He frowned.  “I mean, of course I _can_.  But we’re not allowed to release information to anyone but family.”

“So you’ll check on him, but you won’t tell me anything.”  He rolled his eyes.  “Great.”

“I didn’t say that.  I only meant to say you’d best keep anything I tell you between us.  I’m not sure what it is about you, but something tells me your friend would want you to know.”

-x-x-

James sat in the same chair in the waiting room that he had claimed prior to his exam, ice pack sitting on the chair beside him.  It was losing its effectiveness anyway.

Doctor Morris walked up and offered a small cup with two pills. 

“You forgot to take these,” the doctor said in an overloud voice.

He stood to accept them. 

“Your friend is up on the third floor at the moment,” the doctor whispered.

He followed suit. “What’s up there?”

“Radiology among other testing facilities.”

“Is that good or bad?”

The man shifted to clasp his hands behind his back.  “Hard to say.  I’m sorry I have so little to offer you. His doctor’s notes haven’t been added to the database yet and I can’t go around asking too many questions about someone else’s patient without raising suspicions.   I just thought you’d like to know.”

“Yes.  Thank you, doctor.”

“And here.”  James accepted the small square of paper—hospital stationary.  There was a phone number jotted down in blue ink.  “In case you have any more concerns.”  The doctor gave him a perplexed look, then shook his head and walked away, head down.

He resumed his seat and settled in for more waiting. At least he knew Merlin wasn’t in surgery.  Or the morgue.  A chill ran down his spine.  It must have been a breeze from outside.

-x-x-

James pulled out his phone to check the time and sighed.  It had only been an hour since the last time he checked.  It felt more like ten.  He still had his phone in hand when it began to vibrate with an email alert. 

It might be a good distraction, but he passed on the opportunity.  He read the subject line and put the phone back in his pocket.  It was just another update about the upcoming benefit dinner from Robert and James wasn’t the main recipient, their boss was.  He would have to read it later.  He had no desire to hear Robert rail on about how he carbon copied James for a reason.  ‘If you want to make it to the top here, Craddock,’ Robert would say, ‘you have to act like you’re already there.  That means paying attention to what the boss is up to.’

He stretched his legs as best he could without getting up.  It would be nice to go for a walk, maybe get something to eat, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.  What if someone came with news while he was away?

He was just contemplating the benefits and risks of a nap when a woman in a white lab coat approached him.


	4. "Arthur"

_Arthur!_

James bolted awake, his eyelids scraping across dry eyes as he blinked the dimly lit room into focus. The chair to his right still sat empty, the laminate wood door on the far wall closed the room off from the corridor, and the man on the bed in front of him had yet to wake. Only the subtle hum of the equipment monitoring Merlin’s pulse and blood oxygen level broke the silence.

It felt like someone had shouted… _something._ But nothing here could have woken him so abruptly.  It must have been a trick of his sleeping mind.  He settled back into his chair, intent on remaining awake.  He hadn’t meant to fall asleep in the first place. 

The soft light filtering through the window on the back wall showed that it was already morning.   A quick check of his phone confirmed that it was just after six.  He never expected Merlin to sleep this much, not after his doctor said he was doing well.

Dr. Una Chalmers was a plump woman with a few streaks of grey in her otherwise brown hair. She’d walked straight to him in the waiting room. 

“You came in with Merlin Nore, is that correct?”

He sprang to his feet.  “How is he?”  His conversation with Doctor Morris had prepared him for what she was likely to say next, so he rushed ahead and said, “I’m his brother.”

The doctor frowned, checked the paperwork on her clipboard.  “Half brother?  I have your name here as James Craddock.”

The truth served as a sufficient cover for the initial lie. “I was adopted.  We recently found each other again.”

“In that case, what I can tell you now is that he has a concussion and several broken ribs.”

His thoughts called him back to the mass discolouring of Merlin’s torso.  “What about internal bleeding?”

“We haven’t found any significant bleeds so far but we’re still waiting on the results of a CT scan.”  She checked her watch.  “Those should be ready in a few minutes.  We’ll be looking for something called epidural hematoma.  It means bleeding between the skull and the brain. That is my biggest concern at this point.  It would be a potentially serious complication.”

She had a gentle voice, but it did nothing to ease his worries.  He’d seen the man struck right in front of him, had seen the force of the blow.  People don’t just walk away from that.

“When can I see him?”

“He’s sleeping off a sedative, but you can go up to his room now.  I’ll get the test results and we can go over them there.”

He obtained Merlin’s room number from the nurses’ station and took the lift to the fourth floor.

Merlin was nearly motionless when he arrived. He couldn’t even hear the man breathe.  James usually found noisy breathers annoying, but in this situation, it would be a comfort, a sign of life.

When the doctor showed up with the test results half an hour later, he asked about the sedative first. Weren’t people with concussions supposed to be kept awake?

“The truth is,” the doctor said, “he became very agitated. We worried he would complicate his injuries.”

There was a subtle edge to her words that made him suspect she was understating the truth. “Did he hurt someone?”

“It is not uncommon for people with head injuries to experience bursts of extreme emotion.  Joy, anger, sadness.  We’re ready for that sort of thing. You will need to be prepared too.  Those kind of effects may linger a few days.” 

“How long does he need to stay here?”

“The CT results do not show the bleeding we were concerned about.”  She showed him an image from the scan and explained what it would have looked like if there had been a problem. “Although these results are good, I’d like to keep him for a day or two for observation.”

“You think there may still be a problem.”

“It’s more of a precaution.  To make it out of the kind of accident he was in with such relatively minor injuries… It’s nearly unheard of.”

“But not always.”

“That’s right. Those with strong magic have been known to sustain less severe injuries than would be expected, but…. Well, the last such documented case was more than a hundred years ago.”

James knew magic was real.  He wasn’t one of those conspiracy theory nutters who refused to admit it existed.  It was just that no one bothered anymore.  Why spend years learning to light a candle with magic when you can flip a switch and have light in less than a second?  These days, no one was born with strong magic anyway.  Everyone agreed on that.

Still, he was surprised to hear the doctor speak of it openly.  It tended to be one of those topics that people avoided, especially with people they didn’t know well. Talk of magic could easily lead to the Purge and nobody liked to be reminded of the fact that in all likelihood, their ancestors stood by and did nothing as those with magic were systematically hunted down and murdered, that their forebearers may have cheered or even participated in the public execution of innocent men, women, and children.   He understood the feeling. Thinking of the Purge put a hole in his stomach that lingered far longer than seemed reasonable for such ancient history.

They spoke a short while longer, then Dr. Chalmers left to attend other patients, and he pulled up a chair to wait for Merlin to wake. 

A nurse with cropped hair, deep brown skin, and a bright smile entered the room a short time later. “Let’s see, who do we have here?” 

He filled her in before she could pull Merlin’s chart.  “This is Merlin.”

“Merlin, like the wizard?”

“The proper term is sorcerer.”  The nurse’s frown compelled him to continue.  “The man all the stories are based on.  He was a _sorcerer_.”  He paused.  Weren’t they the same thing?  “I mean, I think that’s the term most commonly used.  Historically speaking.”

She gave him a sad smile, likely attributing the odd ramblings to stress.  She checked Merlin’s vital signs, changed out his IV bag, and left them in peace.

He spent the first few hours running through all the questions he wanted to ask.  Questions about who he was and what was wrong with his memory.  Questions about Merlin himself.

When the sedative wore off, Merlin went from too still to squirming and twitching.  He’d thought the stillness was unnerving, but the restlessness was just as bad, maybe even worse, because that’s when the muttering began. 

“Arthur.”  The first time Merlin said the name, the muscles across his whole body jumped without his permission. He tried to chalk it up to being startled, but it was more than that.  The name bounced around inside his head, ricocheted off his skull and he was absolutely _certain_ that he knew Arthur, whoever he was.

“Arthur.”  That was the word Merlin said the most, but there were random phrases too, intermixed with unintelligible mumbles.    It was tempting to rouse him, especially when Merlin said, “it’s coming,” in a voice that was not just coherent, but alert.  He held back, Dr. Chalmers having convinced him that Merlin would recover best if he could sleep his fill. 

The nurse came back in every few hours but didn’t try to engage him in any more discussion.

After stifling his third yawn in as many minutes, he took to reviewing the few memories he’d recovered since meeting Merlin on the street.  He played them over and over until he became convinced he’d remembered them in the wrong order.  He rearranged them in his mind a few times before he was sure he had it right. First the grass, then his hand on Merlin’s head, then Merlin’s face so close they were nearly touching.  Once he had them oriented properly, a few stray pieces filtered through.

_You’re not going to say goodbye._  
_Thank you._  
_Stay with me._

He slumped back into his chair.  Even more so than sitting up through the night, these memory fragments exhausted him.  And confused him too because Merlin hadn’t expected him to remember that last bit, said he’d been dying.  It didn’t feel like he thought dying should.  He hadn’t experienced even a hint of fear.

It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that he began to eye the sturdy looking plastic bag sitting at the foot of the bed.  When he finally decided to be a snoop, he found it to be full of Merlin’s personal effects—the boots he’d been wearing at the time of the accident, his mobile phone, his satchel.  Merlin’s jeans were nowhere to be found and James assumed they’d met the same fate as his shirt. 

A series of cracks ran across the screen of Merlin’s mobile phone.  He pressed the power button but the screen remained blank.  Either the battery was dead or the phone had suffered more than just the superficial damage to the glass.

He took a little more time to look through the contents of Merlin’s satchel.  It contained a number of smaller items he hadn’t noticed before. One in particular was quite odd. What purpose could Merlin possibly have for the small jar of nasty greenish water he had wrapped in a handkerchief?

He pulled out the journal written in that foreign language.  “You don’t mind, do you Merlin?”  He paused as if to wait for a response.  When Merlin failed to say anything, mumbled or otherwise, he said, “thought not” and read a random page aloud.  Maybe it would help him stay awake.  Maybe it would help him remember.

“Someone is behind this constant failure.  I’m sure of it now. I just can’t figure out who would benefit.  There’s no one left to care but me.”  He turned the page.

“Another dead end today.  I would have lost track of the time if I hadn’t been writing it down.  Maybe I should stop.”

Another page.

“Am considering a trip to the cave.”

And another.

“I’m so very tired.” ~~~~

Merlin took that moment to shift on the bed.  His eyebrows twitched as he muttered “wait forever” followed by “can’t give up.”

James put the journal away then, had no desire to see it again.  The words disturbed him.  They formed the image in his mind of a man consumed with fighting a losing battle, no matter the cost to himself, and that made James uncomfortable. Like he should fix it, but didn’t know how.

He went back to his chair, scooted it as close as he could to the bed, and put a hand on top of Merlin’s.  It was the most he could do for now.

Not long after, he’d fallen asleep.  Now that he was awake again, his muscles ached. He stood to stretch then sat right back down.

When seven o’clock rolled around, a new nurse came in and told him he needed to leave.  She was an overly skinny thing with a long thick braid of dark hair running down her back. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I’m not leaving until he wakes up.”

“Your brother needs to rest.”  Which was ridiculous.  Merlin had been doing nothing _but_ resting.  “You can come back in the afternoon or evening during proper visiting hours.”  He intended to argue but she went on, “I can have someone from security here in under two minutes.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a phone. 

He had no desire to be thrown out.  He could always sneak back in after the woman was gone. If the previous nurse’s schedule was anything to go by, he should be able to avoid her easily.

He stood, leaving his jacket hanging on the back of the chair.  Hopefully, Merlin would recognize it if he woke up before James could get back in the room.  The nurse lowered her hand but didn’t put the phone away.

“Don’t go.”  Merlin gave a whimper.  “Arthur.” 

It was uncanny.  Merlin seemed to be picking up on some of the conversation in the room.  Maybe he was dreaming.

He rested his hand on Merlin’s wrist, then had another idea, something better than waiting around downstairs like a useless lump.  “I will find Arthur.  I’ll bring him back for you.”

Merlin calmed at that, though maybe it was just the human touch that had created the effect.

The nurse stared at him from the doorway of Merlin’s room even as the lift doors slid shut in front of him. Could she know he was lying about his relationship with Merlin? Everyone else had accepted his explanation without question.

Once back on the ground floor, he spotted a vending machine and stopped to buy a drink.  He hadn’t realized he was so thirsty. He stood there chugging his bottle of water until the sound of footsteps drew his attention to his left. When he looked down, he found Veronica approaching.  What was she doing here?  He asked her as much.

“I came to give you moral support.  I noticed you didn’t make it home last night.”   If not for the fact that she was his neighbour, he’d be deeply disturbed she knew that. As it was, he still found her nosiness irritating.   

“Did you drive here?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I need to borrow your car.”  It would take forever if he had to wait on the train schedule. There weren’t many trips per day to his intended destination.

“And why is that?”

“I’m going to find Arthur.”

“Who on earth is Arthur?”

“Merlin’s been mumbling his name all night.”

“And you plan to go out and find this person with only a first name to go on?”

“I have more than that.  This person is obviously important to him, otherwise he wouldn’t be repeating his name.  At his age, it could be a son.  Maybe a brother.”

“It could be his dog.”

“Dog?” She had the strangest ideas sometimes.

“His name is _Merlin_.”

“I don’t see your point.”  Why would he be mumbling his dog’s name?

“Merlin and Arthur?  No parent would name their kids that.”

The names sounded right somehow, strung together like that.

She continued, “It would be like naming your kids Sherlock and Watson.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”  Watson was the character’s surname.  He didn’t bother trying to explain and she didn’t appear to mind the lack.

“You’re just inviting teasing.  He wouldn’t name his own son Arthur for the same reason.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Are you serious?  _King_ Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table?  His loyal advisor Merlin?”

Oh. “I didn’t think of that.”  After his awkward little lecture to that nurse, he really should have.

“How could you not?  That’s the very first thing I thought of.”

“I never cared much for those stories.”

“But they’re so romantic!”  She gripped her hands together and held them to her chest as she let out a breathy sigh. “Just imagine: powerfully muscled knights battling for the honour of a beautiful maiden, their armor glittering in the sun with each swing of mace or staff or sword.” The faraway look on her face was replaced by a sneer.  “I concede that the Guinevere character is an annoying little trollop. If I could marry King Arthur…”

He blocked her out. She probably failed history class.  It was as if she didn’t even know that the people in those stories were based on historic figures—real people that had lived and breathed, struggled and died to shape the world into what it was today.  People that everyone now felt perfectly comfortable twisting into any sort of ridiculous tale they wanted.  Stories where Merlin was evil or where Arthur fathered Mordred by sleeping with his sister.  It was like changing the epitaph on a gravestone.  It made him a little sick and so he avoided the lot.

He interrupted her midsentence with another idea.  “Arthur could be his boyfriend.”

Veronica couldn’t argue with that.  She even managed a pleasant smile as she handed over her car key.  “You bring Merlin’s love back with you and then we can be free of this place.”

He suppressed a groan. “I need one more favor.”

She pouted, but then he smiled at her and she said, “Anything.”

He gave her the instructions and after learning where she’d parked her car, set out on his way.

All those letters in Merlin’s bag had been mailed to the same address. He would to start there.  It was going to be a long drive—two and a half hours to Knighton, then another two and a half back.  That didn’t leave much time to find Arthur before official visiting hours, but slim odds had never stopped him before.

-x-x-

The home of Merlin Nore was an old, two story stone structure with decorative brickwork around the windows and a row of ill-tended hedges along the front.  The other houses on the street were similar in design, though generally with better-kept gardens. 

James knocked on the door and waited.  Merlin might not live here alone; maybe Arthur lived with him.  When no one answered, he dug out the key ring he’d taken from Merlin’s bag.  There were more than a dozen keys in the set, but several were too small to be the one he needed.  He managed to get the door unlocked on his second attempt. 

He had the doorknob half turned when someone behind him said, “You’re not Mr. Nore.” 

The voice belonged to a woman with chin length white hair and a long, pleated skirt in a disgusting yellow-brown colour.  She leaned on the cane in front of her with both hands.

 “No.”  Obviously.  “I’m looking for a friend of his, Arthur.”  He went over to see what information he could gather from the woman.

He did his best to appear disarming as she eyed him up and down through her bifocals. She finished her evaluation with a huff and a thump of her cane on the pavement. “Mr. Nore doesn’t get many visitors.”

He wasn’t quite sure if she thought he was lying, if she was admonishing him for not coming round to see Merlin himself, or if…

“Are you saying you don’t know Arthur?”

“Is he the one Mr. Nore visits every September?” She grumbled the words as if unhappy to admit that James might know more about the issue than she did.

Considering she’d caught him walking into Merlin’s house when the man wasn’t home, he should at least sound like he knew what he was talking about.  He decided to take a cue from Robert and said, “That’s him.” 

The woman let out a barked laugh and relaxed her posture.  “So I was right—he really _wasn’t_ visiting a grave!”

“A grave? What would make you think that?”

“Oh, it’s just something the other neighbours have been saying.  They call it ‘Mr. Nore’s pilgrimage’ because he leaves on the same day every year and always comes back four days later looking a bit depressed.”

“You don’t believe that though.”

“One day, Mr. Nore came back from one of his trips happier than I’ve ever seen any man.  Made me smile just to look at him. It was as if he’d been given the sun itself.  You don’t feel that way from visiting a grave.”

James thought he knew the look.

“But that was years ago. Most of the neighbors weren’t even here to see it, so of course they don’t believe me.”

He wasn’t sure why he would ask.  “Just how long ago was that?”

The woman looked to her left while she thought.  “A decade or so, I’d say.”

“Could it have been 15 years ago?”  His heart pounded waiting for an answer.  There was no way the two events could have anything in common.  Merlin would have barely been a teenager.

“Maybe.  At my age, the years do blend together.” The woman cocked her head to the side, knit her eyebrows together.  “Why all these questions?  I thought you were a friend.  You sound more like a policeman.”

It was time to fess up.  Robert would be so disappointed.  “That’s because I am.”  He showed her his warrant card.  “But I’m off duty now.  Merlin is a friend.  He was in a traffic accident.”

“Oh no! Is he okay?”

“He has some broken bones and a head injury.  He was asking for Arthur, but he’s not been in any condition to give the man’s phone number.  I was hoping I could find a way to contact him here.”

The woman looked past him, shouted, “Ethel! Come quick.” 

Behind him was another woman, this one taller with her grey hair in a set of curlers. Merlin _clearly_ did not live in what could be called a trendy neighbourhood.  

“Mr. Nore is in hospital!”

“What’s happened?  I thought he was on holiday again. Did he fall?”  The woman spoke at a brisk pace that discouraged interruption. “People our age don’t need to be rushing about like we did when we were young.  It’s not healthy.  I’m always telling him.”

What?  Merlin couldn’t be more than 30. He tried to clear up the misunderstanding as the first woman started to fill the second in.  “I don’t think we’re talking about the same per—”

They talked over him.  “My little Lacy is going to be heartbroken to hear,” the second said.  She touched a hand on his forearm.  “That’s my great granddaughter.”

“You’ll have to have young Lacy make him a get well card,” the first woman said.

“She’s coming to visit at the end of the week.  Mr. Nore probably won’t be home by then.  Even if he is, he’ll need to rest.”  She looked off in the distance, “Lacy does look forward to seeing him.  Especially when she can convince him to tell her one of those stories of his.”

“Just hold on a—”

“He always makes them so entertaining, spicing them up as he does with magic and fancy.  Does make me a little sad though.  I’ve always had the feeling they were—”

“Stop!”  The women gaped at him.   “We are clearly not talking about the same person. The Merlin Nore I’m talking about is a young man. A little taller than me and slim.  Dark hair.”

The first woman cocked her head to the side while the second ventured a guess.  “You mean Mr. Nore’s grandson?”

“Grandson?”  The first scoffed.  “Mr. Nore never had any children.”

“He must have!  I’ve seen the lad about on several occasions.  There’s an unmistakable family resemblance.”  The first woman shook her head, but the second ploughed on.  “It’s all in the cheekbones.  You don’t notice so much on Mr. Nore because of the beard.”  The woman marked the statement by gesturing with thumb and forefinger starting in a ‘V’ shape at her chin and pinching together as she drew the hand down to mid-chest.

James gave a start.  That old man on the street, the familiar one who had rushed off just moments before Merlin turned up to distract him, he had a beard like that.

_It was me._

“Why would you say that?”  The women looked at him as though he’d just grown donkey ears.  He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. 

Why had that particular memory bubbled up just now? Merlin, working so hard not to cry as he admitted to—

_It doesn’t matter now._

He shook his head.  He needed to focus.  Needed to make sense of these memories, because the timing made it seem as though Merlin had been saying that he _was_ that old man. But that was impossible.  That sort of thing took powerful magic and even Merlin’s doctor had agreed that no one had that kind of magic anymore.

The conversation carried on as if he hadn’t interfered. “That’s not his grandson.  That is _his brother’s_ grandson.  The boy must have been named after him.  I see him every now and then.  He helps his uncle with the upkeep on the house.  Pleasant boy, that one.”

Confusion, it seemed, was now his normal state.  If the old man he’d seen on the street was Merlin’s great uncle, where was he now?  Wouldn’t he have seen the accident?  He’d been nearby.  With all the commotion, it would have been hard to miss.  Barring that, it would have been on the news; he must have noticed that his nephew was missing.  Didn’t he care?  Wasn’t he worried?  He felt a little offended on Merlin’s behalf.

He thanked the women for their time and returned to the house.  The interior was darker than he’d expected for the time of day and the air carried a scent that made him wonder if he’d been here before.  Just in case, he gave a, “hello?”

After a moment of allowing his vision to adjust to the lighting, he found himself standing in a narrow hall with an empty row of coat hooks along the wall to his left.

“Arthur?”  He rolled his eyes.  Calling the man’s name made him feel like a complete dolt. 

He tried one last time. “Mr. Nore?”  

Satisfied that no one was home, James followed the hallway to a living room where heavy curtains covered the only window, overburdened bookshelves lined an entire wall from floor to ceiling, and on the opposite side of the room, a fireplace stood with a neat stack of wood piled to the side.  A quick look into the fireplace itself showed no sign of use.   His cop brain was hard to turn off. It didn’t make sense.  If you never intend to build a fire, why stockpile logs?  And a house this old would have had many tenants over the years.  None of them had ever thought to light a fire?

James enjoyed a nice fire.  Sitting close enough to feel the heat, watching the flames dance… There was something comforting about that, a warmth that went beyond the temperature of his flesh.

He moved on quickly.  There was a desk in the corner that he wanted to look through, but he needed to see if he could establish just who lived here first—his friend, the young Merlin, the older man, or maybe both.

The wooden planks of the stairs groaned as he climbed up to the first floor landing.  The nearest doorway was wide open and led to a cramped bedroom with a narrow bed.  The blankets were askew and clothes littered the floor.  He felt reasonably certain this was the younger Merlin’s room.

While he was here, he might as well grab a change of clothes for when Merlin’s doctor allowed him to be discharged.  James opened the wardrobe and made his selections at random, a faded red shirt and a pair of dark jeans.  He rolled the fabric into a bundle and went to check out the only other room on the first floor.

The door was shut but not locked so he went in without needing the keys again.  It was another bedroom, just as he’d expected, this one with a larger bed and more floor space. The chest of drawers next to the door was empty. He sneezed.  No one had been in the room for ages.  A layer of dust covered everything and he kicked up a cloud with each step.  Maybe the old man had trouble getting up the stairs and slept downstairs instead, but if that were true, why hadn’t Merlin taken over the larger bedroom? 

He headed back down the stairs and sought out the bathroom next, meaning to collect a few toiletries for Merlin’s hospital stay.  The toothbrush holder sat empty so he riffled through the drawers below the sink to find a new one.  There was an electric razor on the worktop that was likely the younger Merlin’s considering his uncle appeared to have a full beard.  Further inspection found a few tiny bits of dark hair clinging to the blades, so he added it to the pile.

He dumped his accumulation of Merlin’s things into a canvas shopping bag he found sitting out on the kitchen worktop next to a clutter of herb and spice jars. There was far more variety than he kept in his flat.  The few spices he had at home were barely used.  He ate out a lot and when he did eat at home, it was more likely to be from a tin or the freezer than it was to be made from scratch.  Merlin must be quite the chef if he knew what to do with all these spices.

Out of curiosity regarding Merlin’s cooking, he looked through the cupboards as well.  That was how he stumbled upon a whole cabinet full of strange bottles with handwritten labels. There was a variety of shapes and sizes, colors and contents.  It only took him a second to realize this was the source of the smell he’d noticed when he first entered the house.  It took a little longer for him to realize that this earthy, green scent was what he thought a surgery should smell like.

The largest bottle was labeled as foxglove.  Wasn’t that the source of digitalis?  It was common enough as a heart medication, but wasn’t it lethal if used improperly?  Maybe Merlin’s uncle had a cardiac problem.  If the Nore family preferred home remedies, that might have been why Merlin asked that he not be taken to hospital. 

He checked a few more bottles.  Most were labeled with plant names like valerian, comfrey, or sticklewort, but some were labeled by ailment.  He turned a squat bottle of green glass that had been facing the wrong way and had to read the label twice. “Arthur’s Remedy #1362.”  He bounced the bottle in the palm of his hand once and added it to the bag with Merlin’s things, tucking the bottle into a pair of socks to prevent breakage.  Then he decided that if the bottle labeled “fractures” helped with what he thought it did, he should take that as well.  That bottle he wrapped in Merlin’s shirt.

His mobile buzzed in his pocket with a reminder that he was scheduled to help Owen and Garrett at the shooting range that evening.  The Games weren’t until August, but he was determined that their team take first.  Isabel was an excellent shot already, as expected from a member of the firearms unit, but Owen and Garrett needed the extra practice. He didn’t have time for that today. He walked back out into the living room and sent off a quick text to the both of them.

          Sorry. Friend in hospital.  
          Practice w/o me.   
          Focus on posture. 

In all the stress of the last 24 hours, he’d completely forgotten about their training.  Good job he’d set his calendar with the reminder.  He’d be lost without his mobile.  How did people manage to stay on schedule before smartphones?

He turned his attention back to the task at hand. 

James had to step over a low pile of books to get to the desk in the corner.  He pushed an expensive looking scanner out of the way and opened the laptop sitting in the middle of the desk.  He gave up after several failed attempts at guessing Merlin’s password.  So much for finding Arthur’s email address.

He sorted through the papers in the desk drawer hoping to find a phone bill listing Arthur’s number, but came up empty handed.  What he did find was a folder full of letters of varying age, some barely readable, addressed to different people.  Merlin Nore, Morgan Emrys, Ambrose Merlyn. They were all variations on a theme—obvious aliases. The part of him that dealt with criminals five days a week roared to the surface. He thought back to the man in the hospital.  The man who smiled at James like he was someone special.  The man who had saved his life. 

Merlin stood resolute over the body of a woman with dark, wild hair as she took one last breath. 

 His heart raced. 

He’d watched Merlin _kill_ that woman. Saw him pass judgment and carry out the sentence.

He should be horrified.  Or sickened.  Or… anything except what he did feel.  There was a trace of sadness and some pity, but mostly he felt relieved, maybe even a little impressed, and…

He was glad this memory had come back to him now and not when he was in Merlin’s presence.  This way, he didn’t have to worry about acting on his sudden impulse to touch the man—to pat him on the shoulder or ruffle his hair.  To sit next to him and just let their arms graze.

Whatever circumstances had led to that woman’s death, whatever reason Merlin had for using false names, it didn’t matter.  He knew there was a good explanation.  He trusted that man.

He leaned back in the desk chair.  There was nothing left to do here.  There wasn’t a landline phone that he could check the redial on. There wasn’t an address book to look through. The neighbours didn’t even know who lived in this house.  Those women claimed the tenant was an old man, but that razor proved otherwise and nothing in the house even hinted that more than one person lived here. There weren’t pillows or blankets on the couch to indicate that the older Merlin slept downstairs and he hadn’t found where the man might be storing his clothing either.  The one woman said he’d been away.  Obviously, he’d moved out in secret.  It was little wonder, what with how concerned the neighbours had made themselves in the man’s private affairs.  It was like Veronica, except worse, because it wasn’t just one person; apparently, it was the whole street.

As for Arthur… Veronica’s pet dog theory was out the window.  Any sort of family relation seemed farfetched judging by the complete lack of family photos on display and if Arthur was a boyfriend, he didn’t keep anything here, not even a toothbrush.  The man was a ghost in Merlin’s home life, reduced to nothing more than a label on a bottle.  

What was it that had made him so sure he would find Arthur here in the first place? It seemed silly in retrospect.  He probably would have had better luck taking Merlin’s mobile to be repaired. On the other hand, something still wasn’t quite right.

There was one simple explanation.  He dismissed it outright. Didn’t even allow the thought to fully form in his mind, because if it were true, surely _he would_ _know_.

With that, he got himself back in his borrowed car for the return trip to Cardiff.

-x-x-

He was only five steps past the hospital doors before Veronica was there, blocking his way.  “I don’t see Arthur with you.”

“No.  I didn’t have enough time to find him and I wanted to get back in case Merlin was awake.”

“Oh, he’s awake all right.  He kicked me out!”

“He has multiple broken bones and a concussion.  I’m sure he didn’t _kick_ you out.”

“Figuratively, James.  He was quite rude.  To _me_!”

“You did what I asked then.”

“ _Only_ because you asked.”

He returned the borrowed key and told her to go home before heading back up to the fourth floor.  Visiting hours still weren’t for another half an hour, but he didn’t intend on letting that stop him.

As he stepped out of the lift, he silenced his phone; he didn’t need any of the hospital staff hearing it ring.  To his right, a patient sat in a short row of chairs clutching a wheeled IV stand with one hand.  The man grimaced.  “Don’t tell the nurses I’ve been walking on my own."

“You don’t have to worry. I’m not supposed to be here either.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He gave the man an absentminded nod as he walked past, eyes already roving the corridor for that one particular nurse that he knew would send him back downstairs. He made it to Merlin’s room without incident; it just was a hospital after all, not a fortress.   

Merlin sat up in his bed looking amazingly well—alert, happy.  Relief washed over him followed by an odd sense of inevitability.  Of course Merlin was okay.  The man was damn near indestructible.  A string of voices echoed through his head.

_You’ll die, Merlin._  
_No mortal has ever survived._  
_I couldn’t bear to lose you._  
_He’s still alive._  
_I thought we’d lost you!_

It fizzled to nothing before he could recall the context or visualize the people.  It felt different from the other memories, faded.  Worn.

He said, “You look overly cheerful for a man in a hospital bed,” because he wasn’t _nervous_. 

Merlin replaced his smile with a glower.  James didn’t need more memories to know what that look meant.  He mentally braced himself in expectation. 

“Are you just going to hover there by the door like a simpleton or are you going to come over here and sit with me?”

“I’ll come and sit with you, but not because I’m a simpleton.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” Merlin grinned at him like he thought he’d won, the idiot, then broke out laughing.  The laugh quickly devolved into a cough, then a groan.

“Don’t do that.  It hurts to breath, let alone laugh.  I don’t think I can handle more of your faces.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mock indignation, I think that might be my favourite.”

The man spoke as though he expected James to remember whatever shared history there was between them. He had to explain, but how was he supposed to do that?  To tell Merlin that he only remembered a few seconds of their relationship.  Maybe if he’d succeeded in his attempt to find Arthur, this wouldn’t be so difficult.

He returned to the chair he’d spent the night in, sat Merlin’s bag on the ground, and tried to think of a good way to let Merlin down.

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

Merlin pointed at the bag.  “You went to my house.”

“I didn’t think you would mind.  Brought a change of clothes, a few other things you might want.”

“Your girlfriend said you wouldn’t be gone long.”

“She is _not_ my girlfriend.”

“That’s not what she told me.   _James_.”  Merlin seemed to share in the distaste of his name.  “I think she has the wedding planned.”

“I’m not surprised.”  He sighed.  Best to get this over with as soon as possible.  “I want to apologize.”

“For what?”

“You’re in here because of me.”

“You think I’m going to stop protecting you now?”

“And because…”  He hedged at the last second, because there was another explanation here but he didn’t want to make a fool of himself.  Not in front of Merlin.

“The doctor said you were agitated earlier.  I thought you might be worried.”  Merlin only looked at him.  Waited for him to continue.  “About someone.”  Merlin really wasn’t going to help him through this at all was he?  “I thought I’d…”  He could feel the muscles in his face contorting into odd shapes.  He said the rest in a rush, glad to be rid of the words.  “I couldn’t find Arthur for you.”

“Find Arthur for me?”  Merlin scoffed, but a not at all unexpected look started growing.  “You’re ridiculous.”  Cautious.  “You know who I am.”  Disappointed.

“You’re Merlin.”  He had that right, he knew, but it didn’t seem to put the man at ease.

“And what does that mean?”

“You’re my friend.”  That smoothed Merlin’s brow a little.

“I suppose you’ve got the most important bit down.  It’ll do for now. But what about you?  What’s your name?”

“Well it’s not James.”

“No, it certainly is not.”  Merlin looked at him as if still expecting an answer.

He’d already dismissed the only theory he had. If he could remember Merlin’s name, he would have remembered his own if Merlin spoke it.

He tried the only thing he could think of. He focused on the most prominent memory he had and—

          Merlin shook him awake, shouted his name right next to his ear.  _Arthur!_

Then he was back to his original memory with the haze and Merlin’s pained smile and _stay with me._

He blurted out, “I’m Arthur,” at the same time that Merlin lost patience with him and said, _“You_ are Arthur.”  He could feel an unspoken insult of some kind tagged onto the end.

“I don’t understand how it is that you knew who I was, but couldn’t remember who you are.  What happened to you?”

He sighed. He’d thought Merlin would have all the answers.

“I’m not sure.  There is something wrong with me, with my memory.”

“Tell me the very first thing you can remember.”

“That would be 15 years ago.”  Merlin nodded, like he’d expected as much. “It was a bright day—sunny and warm—but I was numb with cold. I remember stumbling barefoot over freshly tilled ground.  The soil felt like it was burning my feet.  There was a man, a farmer, who took me to his house and called the police.  I didn’t have a single concrete memory at the time so I was put in an orphanage.” ~~~~

“What about now?  You knew my name.”

“I’ve just started remembering.  I have a few fragments and some indistinct voices that I can’t place. One memory stands out.  I was exhausted and in pain.  You were upset.  You wanted us to go somewhere, but I couldn’t finish the journey.  You…”  He trailed off.  “You look upset now too.”

“Sorry. What you’re remembering…  It was the worst day of my life.”

“Because I was dying.”

“Yes.”

He skipped over asking how it was that he was still alive or how the timing of any of this worked out.  He wasn’t sure he was ready for the answer yet. “I didn’t…”

“What?”

“I didn’t want you to cry.  I think I was very fond of you.  I think… I still am.”  He paused.  “You’re laughing at me.”

“No, no. Sorry. I’m not.  I would never.  It’s only that if you remembered more, you might not say that.”

“I’m not fond of you?”

“That’s not it.  It’s just not like you to say so out loud.  Makes me happy though.  To hear you admit it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“I’ve disappointed you again.”

“You had other ways of showing it.”

Merlin graciously changed the subject before he could ask exactly how he showed his affection.  “Let’s see what you brought me.”  He didn’t sound very confident in Arthur’s abilities in this matter.

He moved the bag to the bed, sat it to Merlin’s right side. 

Merlin rummaged around, chuckled, then ran a hand through the stubble at his chin.  “Think I need a shave, do you?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it if you don’t want to.”  In those sparse memories of before, Merlin had been clean-shaven.  The fragments were so few, they could have been an anomaly.  For all he knew, Merlin routinely neglected his razor.  But he didn’t think so.  He looked a bit odd with the stubble. “I…”

And Merlin really was laughing at him now.

“You’re—!”  He didn’t feel sorry for the man at all when he clutched at his side with a groan. “I knew you always shaved.”

“That’s a bold proclamation for a man who didn’t even know his own name a few minutes ago.”

Merlin scratched at his chin. “Damn it, Arthur!  Now that you’ve brought my mind to it, it itches.  It has to be a full beard or nothing.”

Arthur tried to imagine Merlin with a full beard.  His mind couldn’t quite make it work.

“That, I’d like to see.”

“You have seen it.  And recently.”

Recently?  Merlin continued before he could question it.  “Come on then, you brought me a change of clothes, but where are my boots?  We need to be on our way.” 

“You’re not going anywhere.  Has the doctor not been in to tell you?  You have broken ribs, Merlin.  A concussion.”

Merlin made a dismissive noise.

Maybe he’d been premature in thinking Merlin wasn’t a madman, because he was either crazy or an idiot.  How do you reason with an idiot?  He gave it a try. “Look at you! You’re grimacing just shifting about in bed,” but Merlin was untying the side of his wrap around hospital gown and exposing his bare chest. 

His quick intake of breath was audible.  Merlin’s torso, which not 24 hours prior had been a mass of horrific looking bruises, was substantially improved.  Impossibly so.  The bruises were still there, but they were brown and yellow, not purple and black.  The injury looked like it was more than a week old, instead of a day. Just what the hell was going on?

Merlin pulled the shirt from the bag and as he unfolded it, a small glass bottle tumbled into his lap.

“What’s this?”

Arthur felt a flush beginning on his cheeks.  What if this medicine did something completely different than what the name implied?  What if it wasn’t even medicine at all?  It could be poison for all he knew.

“You really did rummage around in my house didn’t you?”

He hoped Merlin wasn’t angry.  He looked amused more than anything. Arthur decided to fess up to the other bottle as well, but considering he had apparently brought something named after himself, it was even more embarrassing.

“There’s another one in that pair of socks.”

Merlin dug out the bottle and gave a snort.  “You might never hear me say this again, Arthur, so I want you to listen carefully.”

Arthur gave Merlin his full attention.

“Sometimes, and this is one of them, you are a complete genius.”

Arthur was pretty sure he beamed at the praise, but he had to ask.  “Why?”

“Or maybe you’re just a lucky bastard.  You don’t even know what this does, do you?”

“It seemed important.  It does have my name on it after all.”

“I see time has done nothing to dull your massive ego.”

“Hey!”

“I worked on this a long time for you.”  He pulled out the cork stopper and drank half the contents.  “Here.  You drink the other half.”

He eyed the bottle dubiously.  First off, because he still didn’t know what it did.  And secondly, because if Merlin drank it, he obviously needed it, and therefore should have the whole thing to himself.

“Do you trust me?”

And why should he?  Just because you care for someone doesn’t mean they won’t betray you.  “Of course.”  The words were out of his mouth before he could put any more thought to the matter.

“What does it do?”

Merlin restrained himself to one little laugh and said, “It’s for head injuries.  I assume you weren’t lying to that paramedic when you said your head hit the ground.”

“It’s fine. Just a little bump.”

“Probably lost consciousness for a bit.”

“Maybe.”  He wasn’t quite sure where this was going.  “What makes you say that?”

“Let’s just say that you have a history of getting knocked unconscious.  I honestly started to worry that all those blows to the head would get to you one day.  And so, I decided to pass some time in developing this remedy for you.”

Nothing Merlin said made any sense, but he downed the contents of the bottle anyway.

Merlin smiled at him in response.

“Help me with this one.”  He indicated the bottle of white powder.  “I need something to take it with.” 

Arthur poured a cup of water from a plastic pitcher that had been left on Merlin’s bedside table.

Merlin tapped a small amount of powder into the cup, swirled the contents to mix them, mumbled something unintelligible, and downed the contents in one.  “Uck.”

Merlin pulled his shirt on, his grimaces a little less pronounced, then finished dressing, apparently feeling the blanket over his lap was sufficient in terms of privacy.  

Merlin swung his legs over the side of the bed and Arthur relented, handing the man his boots.

“Why are you in such a hurry to leave?”

Merlin lifted his shirt and Arthur watched as the mass of bruises faded a few more shades before his very eyes.

“But that’s—”

          Merlin gripped his wrist, held Arthur’s gloved hand to his shoulder.

_I have—_

“—magic,” he finished in a whisper.

Merlin watched for further reaction, not crying this time, but with his shoulders tense.

_And I use it for you, Arthur.  Only for you._

He could remember turning away.  A look of hurt on Merlin’s face.  He didn’t want to see that again.  “How…umm…”  He tried again.  It was hard though, he’d never seen magic before.  Or rather, he couldn’t remember ever seeing magic before.  “How long will that take?  To heal you completely, I mean.”

Merlin relaxed before responding.  “A few hours I suppose.  The injuries to skin and muscle heal more quickly than those to bone, just like you would normally expect.”

When Arthur made no response, Merlin said, “Come on, stop gaping. Help me out of here before someone notices and starts asking questions.  I have no desire to be poked and prodded by hordes of scientist. Or worse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dear readers. I'd like to take a moment to say thank you for reading. I hope you have noticed some familiar characters so far that are going by different names now that they have been reborn (besides Arthur, obviously). I'll be mightily impressed if anyone can tell me the meaning of Merlin's doctor's name. It's so obscure, it's not even meant to be a hint, just a fun way of selecting a name.


	5. Connections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've started using a work skin with this chapter. It should help with the formatting of the frequently used indentions - especially for those reading on a small screen. Please let me know if you have problems with the formatting and I'll do my best to fix it.

Arthur opened the door just enough to see out in both directions. To his right, a woman pushed open a door on the opposite wall with one hand and pulled a cart of cleaning supplies along behind her with the other. To his left, a man sat in one of the chairs at the end of the corridor by the lift, but it wasn’t the patient from before. This man looked healthy and didn’t wear the uniform of a healthcare worker. Because of the hour, there shouldn’t be any visitors on the floor. Arthur wasn’t supposed to be here either. The man shifted to lean forward in his seat, rested his elbows on spread knees, put one hand on his chin, and looked directly at Arthur.

The corridor blurred.

Arthur stood at the back of a great hall. The polished hardwood floors caught the light pouring in the high windows. At the far end of the room, a man sat tall in the high backed chair on the dais. A burnished crown rested atop his head. He was confident, regal—a king. His father.

“Arthur?”

He looked a step behind him to his left. Merlin had his hands folded in front of him and his head respectfully bowed, but he was looking at Arthur instead of the floor.

“Hm?”

The scene faded.

“You seemed out of sorts just now. You all right?”

“I’m him, aren’t I?” And this was it—the truth he’d been avoiding since he first heard Merlin mumble his name. Had he always been this good at ignoring the truth? Burying it so deep that he didn’t even know it was there?

“Him who?”

“You asked what it meant that you were called Merlin. I said you were my friend, but you’re more than that. You have magic and my father was a king. I tried so hard to make him proud.”

“So who are you then? What does it mean to be Arthur?”

“Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot.”

Merlin didn’t answer quickly enough for Arthur’s liking and when he finally did respond, all he said was, “Are you still expecting me to call you ‘my lord?’”

By Merlin’s tone, he’d meant that to be lighthearted, but Arthur wasn’t in the mood for humour. “I don’t remember being king.”

“Then maybe it will help jog your memory if I do. Come on, sire, it’s past time for us to go.”

He didn’t move. It was a lot to take in.

“You’re not freaking out are you?”

“No.” He finally knew who he was. It felt good. A little overwhelming, but good.

“Arthur?”

“What? Oh, right.” He started to pull the door open again and froze. “I’m not sure we should just walk out of here. There’s a man watching this room.”

After Arthur explained, Merlin said, “All right, we need a plan.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t particularly want to find out. Not right now anyway.”

“Okay, but he’s sitting right in front of the lift.”

“Then we’ll take the stairs.”

“The stairs are at the end of the corridor. He’ll still see us.”

“You could just do what you normally do.”

Arthur drew a blank.

“Knock him out.” Arthur must have made a face at that because Merlin followed up a little too quickly with, “I’m kidding.” He wasn’t sure that Merlin was.

Arthur scanned the room for options. His eyes fell on the only other exit.

Merlin followed his gaze and his voice took on a very particular tone. “No.” Adamant and knowing. “Arthur, no. I refuse to make my escape out a fourth floor window. Think of something else. What about that girlfriend of yours.”

“I told you. She’s not my—”

“Veronica, right? You don’t even realize who she is. I’d have thought the spell would have worn off when she died that first time. Maybe it’s habit.”

“Merlin, do you never talk sense?” All the stories agreed that Merlin was supposed to be some sort of genius. He had a hard time rectifying the legends with the man before him.

“Oh, right. Sorry. Like I was saying. Can’t you just phone her? I’m sure she could act as a distraction. She is rather pretty. And seemed eager to please you.”

“And have her thinking—”

“Didn’t you just borrow her car?”

“That’s not at all the same.”

“Of course it is.”

“I could distract him myself. I can handle him if that doesn’t work. Like you said, I’ll knock him out if I have too.” He was sure he could, even neglecting his training from work. He’d done it before when he was 16. Hit Evan Miller so hard the kid lost consciousness. He’d deserved it for forcing a kiss on a girl who’d rejected him. Arthur’s mother had been furious with him for resorting to violence, but she hadn’t punished him for it.

“I really _was_ kidding about that. Not about it being your usual strategy—that’s the way with you brutish knight types, always thinking with your brawn instead of your brain. But I don’t actually want you to—” Merlin shut his mouth, pressing his lips into a line. He must have noticed the look Arthur was giving him. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

Arthur gave him an exasperated nod in lieu of a verbal response.

“Sorry.”  

It wasn’t the rambling that bothered him; Merlin had a pleasant sort of voice. One that was soothing to listen to even if you weren’t really paying attention to the meaning of the words. It was all this talking about things he couldn’t remember that bothered him.

He let the issue drop and refocused their attention back to where it belonged. “I know what we need to do.”

Arthur fished into his back pocket and pulled out his phone along with the slip of paper the A&E doctor had given him.

“That’s my idea with a different person.”

“Shut up, Merlin.”

The phone rang several times before Dr. Morris answered. After the requisite introduction was over, Arthur gave the man the same explanation he’d given Merlin.

“Why don’t you call security?” Dr. Morris said.

“Honestly…” Should he really admit to this? To Dr. Morris? “We don’t want to raise the man’s suspicions. We just need a distraction. I’m taking Merlin home now, but he hasn’t officially been discharged.”

He expected the man to protest, he was a doctor after all. After a long pause, Dr. Morris said, “If you think that is best.”

Arthur gave the details of what they needed done and ten minutes later, when Dr. Morris was able to take a break, the man texted saying that he was heading up to their floor.

Arthur stuffed all of Merlin’s things into the messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder. He cracked the door open a sliver. He just needed to be able to hear when Dr. Morris arrived.

He eyed Merlin who still sat on the bed, attempting to put on his shoes and making slow progress of the job. It’s hard to do much of anything without using your torso and so every move he made put stress on his broken ribs. Arthur had to wonder just how well this was going to go. Merlin wasn’t exactly in shape for running, if it came to that.

The ding of the lift sounded and Arthur turned to listen.

Footsteps.

The low murmur of civil conversation.

He swung the door open a few more inches, enough to peer down the corridor.

Merlin grunted as he lowered himself to the floor, took the few steps needed to get to the door, then crowded Arthur from behind, trying to see out as well. Arthur shifted to accommodate him, bent his neck and torso to the side so that Merlin could see over his head without straining. They watched as Dr. Morris positioned himself in front of the mystery man and gestured widely with a clipboard.

“Ready?”

Merlin nodded and had to step away to avoid being hit as Arthur pulled the door wide open.

Merlin checked the position of their distraction and kept toward the right wall where he would be blocked the best by Dr. Morris. The doctor stood in such a way that the seated man wouldn’t be able to stand without being awkwardly close.

Merlin stood straight as he walked but had his right arm wrapped around his ribs as though he could stop his core muscles from engaging. Arthur stepped out of the room and walked behind him, one more shield between his friend and someone who may harbor ill will.

They were only halfway to the stairs when the clatter sounded behind them. He looked back and the man was standing now, a toppled chair laying to the side. The man stood taller than Dr. Morris and had no trouble seeing them limping their way toward the exit.

The man stepped around Dr. Morris and began following them in earnest. Any doubt he’d held about the man was now confirmed. He wasn’t just some bloke who liked to people watch in hospital corridors.

“Sorry Merlin, but you have to go faster.” He stepped up to Merlin’s side and put a hand on a shoulder blade to push him along. “Our friend back there is following us.”

“Great.”

“You really think you can manage the stairs?”’

“I have to, don’t I?”

The door to the stairwell was directly ahead at the junction with a shorter corridor that ran off to the right. When they were close enough that Arthur could see down the intersecting corridor, he made the decision to change their plan. “This way.”

Merlin saw what he was thinking and turned. They would have never made it down the stairs before that man caught up. The man didn’t appear to be rushing, probably didn’t want to attract attention to himself, but it wasn’t hard to walk faster than a man with broken ribs.

Arthur sprinted ahead, looking for anything else that could be used to their advantage. Hoping for a supply room, he ducked through the first door he found with a sign that proclaimed the room to be for “STAFF ONLY.”  He had a speech prepared in case there was already a hospital employee inside. It wasn’t needed.

The smell of strong coffee wafted from a machine in the corner. A tiny kitchenette area and a square table barely registered in his mind; they were useless to him. He spun around and found a coat rack laden with several light jackets and a white lab coat, which he grabbed and threw on. Merlin gave him a puzzled look when he stepped back into the corridor.

“Disguise” was the only explanation he gave. Not that it would fool the man behind them, but it might reduce questions from other people.

He continued his search down the corridor and at the end found what he was looking for. He pressed the down button for the service lift and grabbed the wheelchair stationed next to it.

He pushed the chair back down to Merlin at a jog and said, “Come on. You’re slowing me down.”

“Of course. Wouldn’t want to impede your heroic escape, my lord.” He said it with a smile, but clenched his fists as the motion of easing himself into the chair put stress on his partially healed injuries.

Arthur sped them toward the end of the corridor and craned his neck to look behind them. A doctor entered the break room, but the corridor was otherwise empty.

The floor indicator above the lift door changed from three to four. They were going to make it.

That was when the lift doors slid open and revealed Merlin’s nurse - the strict one who’d kicked Arthur out of Merlin’s room just that morning. And maybe he could have dealt with her if that was all there was to it, but she held a phone up to her ear. To whomever was on the other line, she said, “I see them.”

Behind them, that man was coming round the corner by the door to the stairs, walking with an easy, confident gait now that his prey was surrounded.

Merlin didn’t want people to know he had magic, but did these two already know? There were hate groups out there living at the fringe of society opposite the magic deniers. Crazy, sick bastards who thought anyone that had even the slightest potential for magic was a danger to all of civilization. Was that who these people were? Did they think Merlin a defenseless novice? Did they understand what he was capable of? Merlin wouldn’t want to confirm any suspicions by using magic to defend himself. It was going to be up to Arthur to protect them both, not an easy task when his memory was shot and he was constrained by modern law. He’d flash his police credentials, but he didn’t really want these people knowing his name and where to find him. And besides, if they were who he suspected, he doubted they would care.

“Don’t run,” the man said, as if there were a place they could run _to_.

The woman stepped up and placed her hand in front of the lift door to prevent it from closing. They needed a way out. He couldn’t just stand here and watch his enemy—

Arthur struggled to keep his mind in the present as a memory began to surface. He fought against it, tried to push it down. It felt like trying to swim through quicksand. His efforts were in vain.

_Keep your head down. Don’t speak. I’ll take care of this._

A series of images floated across his vision to accompany the words. Merlin helping him down from his saddle, wiping his brow, feeding him, pushing on his boots, and most pathetic, helping him stand so he could relieve himself with what little dignity he could muster.

All that power the stories say he possesses and Merlin chose to help Arthur with even the most basic tasks when he’d been helpless. He needed to return the favor.

His muscles tensed. He’d fight them both off if he had to and damn the consequences. He’d take the man first, he was the bigger threat. Put Merlin between the wall and his back, lash out with a single solid punch to the man’s face. He might break a finger but that was little matter. As the man fell, he’d spin on the woman. Sweep a leg out to knock her—

“Hold the lift please.”

He jumped as the words interrupted his planning.

Behind their would-be captors, an orderly and a nurse pushed a railed hospital bed containing a wrinkled old man. Arthur waited and let them into the lift first, then turned Merlin around and backed them both in.

“Isn’t it time for your rounds, Fiona?” the other nurse said.

He could see the woman mentally cursing. “Of course.” And she stepped out of the lift instead of making a scene.

Arthur sighed in relief as the door slid shut. He jabbed the button for the ground floor noting that the third floor button was already lit.

The service lift was a behemoth and quite possibly the slowest in existence. The cables squeaked in protest as they began to descend to the floor below. Merlin tapped a finger on the arm of his wheelchair. Arthur could understand the agitation, but the rhythmic noise was not helping him concentrate.

The lift lurched to a stop at the third floor and the orderly and the nurse took their time in maneuvering their patient out the door.

“They’ll be waiting for us,” Arthur said. That man and Fiona were likely racing down the stairs this very second in anticipation of meeting them again at the ground floor.

“I know.”

“We’re agreed?”

Merlin nodded.

He started to push the wheelchair out into the corridor, but halfway out, Merlin stopped him. “Wait. I have an even better idea.”

He stood up, and turned to beckon Arthur forward. “Come on. Just leave it there.”

Arthur smiled.

_That might just work._

_You are full of good ideas today, Merlin._

He stepped up to Merlin’s side, put an arm around his back, and used his other hand to grab Merlin’s closest forearm. Together they made their way down the corridor, looking to the casual observer like a doctor helping his patient.

They turned the corner at the stairs and when he looked back at the service lift, saw the doors attempting to close around the wheelchair. Fiona and her accomplice would be waiting longer than they expected for the lift to make it to the ground floor. Someone was bound to come along any moment and remove the obstacle and so, he picked up the pace, forced Merlin to go faster.

When they neared the public lift, he sprinted ahead again so that the lift would be waiting by the time Merlin finished the distance.

Little over a minute later, they were stepping cautiously out onto the ground floor. Arthur wasn’t sure which direction to go to the nearest exit but Merlin said, “this way” pointing to their left.

Arthur deposited his filched lab coat on an empty gurney as they made their way back into the A&E section of the hospital. They passed through the waiting area where he’d spent too much time just the day before and were nearly to the exit when the commotion began. There was a shout of “watch it!” then “slow down!” followed by a crashing sound. They didn’t wait to find out what had been the cause.

They turned the last corner before the exit and barely avoided a collision with a team of doctors, nurses, and paramedics pushing a gurney carrying a little girl with a bloodied leg. Merlin stopped and watched them pass. Arthur had to grab his arm and pull him along. Merlin allowed it, but reluctantly, as though he wanted to go back and help.

“Come on, Merlin. We have to go.” Merlin set his jaw and his eyes hardened, but he regained his focus.

When they stepped out into the open air, Arthur realized the flaw in their plan. What now? The people chasing them wouldn’t just stop at the hospital doors. Their choices were to run or hide. Whatever they did, it needed to be done now. Considering Merlin’s condition, hiding looked to be their only real option.

A row of hedges ran along the hospital wall, but it was too early in spring for the leaves to provide sufficient cover. Directly ahead, a bright yellow and green ambulance sat parked along the kerb. It was likely the one that had brought in the girl with the mangled leg.

It was a shame the vehicle would be locked to prevent theft. He did the only other thing he could think of, grabbed Merlin’s shirt and maneuvered him to stand behind the ambulance, hoping all the while that no one would think to bend over and look at the ground. Even standing behind a tyre wouldn’t entirely hide their feet.

Behind them, the hospital doors burst open.

Arthur stole a quick glance through the windows of the ambulance, and sure enough, Fiona and her cohort stood scanning the area, trying to figure out which way they’d gone. He slid a fraction to his right—away from the window—and pressed himself against the side of the ambulance.

“Where did they go?” That was the woman’s voice. Her footfalls were heavy, annoyed. Arthur listened carefully, judging her location based on sound alone, not willing to risk a second look.

“We can’t even be sure they left through this exit. We weren’t fast enough. You should get back to work. We don’t need to arouse any more suspicion than we already have.”

As the man’s voice grew louder, he nudged Merlin and gestured for him to circle round to the back of the ambulance. Arthur followed right behind.

“We were so close this time!”

“I know it’s frustrating, but we must have patience. We will find him again.” From the direction and volume of the man’s voice, he was standing in a position that would allow him to see the exact spots he and Merlin had been standing in mere seconds ago.

“Do you think that other man could be _him_? I thought we had more time. I heard him called James, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s best not to guess.” The man’s voice grew softer, as if moving further away. “We should move up our timetab…” Then they were gone.

To his side, Merlin let out a deep breath, closed his eyes, and rested his head against the side of the ambulance. He allowed Merlin only a moment to relax, then they made their way to the nearest bus stop and caught a ride back to where this all began.

-x-x-

Arthur clenched his jaw.

The bus wasn’t crowded but it was far from private. The woman sitting adjacent to him kept trying to catch his eye. Merlin, sitting across the aisle, was trying to avoid staring at him, a feat at which he was only moderately successful. Behind him, a teenager chewed on a wad of gum with far more enthusiasm that was necessary. The incessant _smack smack pop_ grated on his nerves.

His jaw began to ache.

He had questions, damn it! Just what in hell was going on? Was this some sort of reincarnation thing? If so, why did Merlin look just as he remembered? Was he using magic so that Arthur would recognize him? Why could Merlin remember everything from their old lives and Arthur was only remembering pieces just now? None of this explained why he couldn’t remember the first nine years of this new life. And what about those people chasing them? The list went on and on, but it wasn’t like he could just start asking within earshot of… well, anyone other than Merlin.

To distract himself, Arthur pulled out his phone and sent a text to Dr. Morris thanking him for his help and letting him know they’d got out all right. Then he sorted through his missed messages and found he had two missed calls and a voice mail from his mother. Robert had sent him a text.  

Heard what happened  
Everyone’s worried  
Let us know how you are

He fired off a quick text to both Robert and his mother:

I’m fine. No need to worry.

Only then did he listen to the voice mail his mother had left. He sighed and added another message:

It was just a little bump on the head.  
I’m not acting strangely at all.

When he caught Merlin watching him again he said, “Apparently, someone told my mother I nearly died yesterday.”

“Your mother?”

Merlin looked confused and it struck him that Merlin must be thinking about his real mother. Or, Arthur Pendragon’s real mother, if there was a difference.

“I was adopted.”

“Of course. I had thought of that.”

“Yes, well. Now she thinks I have some sort of massive brain trauma that’s impairing my judgment.”

“And you’re just texting her? You should call her, Arthur. Let her hear your voice. That would calm her more than any amount of texting.”

He knew Merlin was right, but he really just didn’t want to deal with it right now. He dialed anyway.

She picked up before the phone even had a chance to ring on his end. “Sweetheart, I’ve been so worried. Were you injured at all?”

He rolled his eyes at Merlin who looked a bit too smug for his liking. “No, Mother. I’m completely fine.”

“That lady friend of yours said—”

“Wait. Who? _Veronica_?” He was going to have to do something more than the routine ‘we are not a couple’ talk.

“She was just worried about you. She told me all about the accident and how some random man saved your life. Your lady friend—”

“Veronica is not my ‘lady friend,’ Mother.”

“She said you’ve been the only visitor to see the man who pushed you out of the way. Said you’d taken it upon yourself to find his family. You’re such a good boy. I’m so proud of you.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Well, that may be, but I decided that I wanted to thank him in person. I hope he likes a Sunday roast.”

“You what?”

“Tell him to skip the hospital food for dinner. I’ll bring you both something good to eat. What is his room number? I should be there a little after six.”

“We’re not at the hospital. I’m taking Merlin home.”

“Merlin? That’s your new friend’s name, is it? I’ve always thought that was a lovely name for a boy.” She paused for a moment. “At any rate, if you won’t let me come to you, you’re going to have to come here and help me eat this roast. It will go to waste if I don’t have help.”

He rolled his eyes again, mouthed to Merlin, ‘she wants to meet you.’

“Put it in the freezer. We don’t have time to…” He trailed off; Merlin was saying something. “Wait hold on.” He wasn’t good at having two conversations at once. “What was that Merlin?”

“I said, ‘I’d like to meet your mum.’”

“Oh excellent!” His mother said, making use of that annoying skill she’d always seemed to have to overhear things at the worst moment. “Dinner will be done around 5, but I’ll keep it warm until you boys get here.” She hung up before he could retract Merlin’s comment.

Great. Now he had to take Merlin home to meet his mother. It wasn’t that he didn’t want them to meet; it just made him edgy. Hoping they would get along. Fearing what manner of embarrassing stories they would share about him. And heaven help him, when he thought of it that way, it made him sound like a man introducing his fiancé to his family for the first time.  

He covered his face with his hands for a second as though blocking his vision might stop his mind from traveling down the path it was on. It didn’t work. He glared at Merlin instead.

“You just committed us to dinner in Merthyr Tydfil.”

Merlin didn’t look ashamed at all.

-x-x-

Before Arthur could explain the twice-hourly train schedule to Merthyr, Merlin said, “We can take my car.”

“You have a car?”

“I do a lot of traveling. It’s in a car park a little ways down the road from where we met yesterday. Why did you think I wanted to take this particular bus?”

He’d thought they’d just taken the first one to come by as a way to put distance between them and the people searching for Merlin at the hospital.

By the time they got off the bus, Merlin was walking with noticeably less pain. He led Arthur to his car. It was old and a light coat of dust and grime coated the black paint. On the passenger’s seat, he caught a glimpse of a long wool coat and what looked like it might be a sleeping bag.

“Keys?” Merlin said.

Arthur had forgotten that he still had Merlin’s keys in his pocket. He fished them out but said, “You’re not driving; who knows what drugs are still in your system.”

“I’m _fine_ , Arthur.”

Arthur had the urge to tell him to just do as he said. He managed to hold the comment back. He wasn’t a king anymore. He settled for a response that was a bit more polite, though no less firm. “I insist.”

“I am holding you responsible for any damage to my car or our persons.”

“Have no fear, Merlin. My driving skills are impeccable.”

Merlin tossed his clutter of gear into the backseat and, with no further protest, Arthur set them off toward his mother’s house. It was a 40-minute drive and finally, they were in a place where it was safe to talk openly. He hadn’t even turned out of the car park before he began.

“What exactly is going on? Is this a past life that I’m remembering?”

“Not like you’re thinking. You’re still you. Arthur Pendragon. The same Arthur I served in Camelot for ten years. You haven’t been reborn as someone new. You look just as you did… at the end. No,” Merlin paused to study him, “that’s not quite true. You look younger. How old do you think you are?”

“Twenty-four. Why? How old should I be?”

“Your last birthday in Camelot marked your thirtieth year.”

Merlin seemed to be intentionally avoiding the ‘d’ words. Died. Death. Dead.

“How is that even possible? I mean, I’ve lived a life here. Now. In this time. I was a child here. If I wasn’t reborn, then…”

“I imagine it has something to do with the spell that’s been placed on you.”

“Spell?” He felt a surge of panic. Was it a curse? How could Merlin be so calm about this? He was just sitting there watching Arthur drive.

“It’s what drew me to you yesterday. I can feel it thrumming from a fair distance. This close, it feels like the pulse of the Earth itself, deep and powerful.”

“And this doesn’t bother you?”

“Bother me? Look at you! You’re here— _alive!_ I hardly think you have room for complaint.”

“How can you be sure that there’s not some hidden price? Isn’t that the way these kinds of things work?”

Arthur pulled up to a traffic signal. This was the slowest part of the trip. Getting out of town. Once they were on the A470 and past the Coryton roundabout, it was a rather mindless drive.

“Don’t move.” Merlin turned in his seat with barely a grimace, put his hands on either side of Arthur’s head, and closed his eyes. Arthur didn’t feel any different, but he was fairly sure Merlin was using magic.

“Huh.” Merlin let go and Arthur returned to looking out the window just as the light turned green.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s just not what I expected.”

“Is that bad? Can you undo it?”

“It’s not hurting you. It’s complicated, Arthur.”

“We do have time.”

“I don’t think 40 minutes is enough time to explain how it is that you’ve come back from the dead.” Merlin didn’t stumble over that last word at all. Maybe Arthur had been imagining it before.

“The abridged version.”

Merlin took a deep breath. “All the old prophets agreed that you would rise again when Albion’s need was greatest. Call it destiny if you like.”

Rise again. Those were the words in Merlin’s journal. And suddenly his obsessive quest made sense. He must have spent the last fifteen years looking for him. And of course he would. This was Merlin after all. Loyal to a fault. He was sure of that, though there was no specific memory attached to the feeling.

“What does that mean?” It sounded rather ominous.

“I’m sure we are going to find out. But back to the original question. This enchantment that you’re so worried about—”

“I’m not _worried_ , _Merlin._ I’m merely trying to establish—”

“ _The enchantment_ ,” Merlin raised his voice to talk over him, “it’s not what brought you back. It’s an age alteration spell. I should have recognized it before—I am rather familiar with those—but it’s a different kind of magic than I use. Not mortal magic. It’s not even Sidhe magic, which was what I was expecting. I can’t tell if the memory issue is just a side effect or if it’s an integral part of the charm.”

Arthur had no idea what half that meant. He latched on to the one point that stood out. Age alteration. What Merlin said earlier took on a new meaning. Arthur hadn’t been _reborn_. He’d been brought back to life— _resurrected!_ —like some prophesied messiah or mythical hero, then regressed in age with magic. No wonder he’d never felt like he was missing much from the 9 years before he showed up in modern Wales. There were no memories to be had.

One thing still didn’t make sense. “Why bother with any of this? If I’m meant to help in this time of great need, why not just bring me back as I was, at my proper age and with memories intact?”

Merlin had obviously already considered this.  “Think of it as preparation. Whatever fate awaits the country, it’s likely not something that could be answered with the skills you had as king alone. Historically speaking, we weren’t far removed from the Iron Age. We lived in a stone citadel with no electricity, no plumbing, no technology. Imagine being taken straight from that, to this.” He made a broad gesture across the windscreen.

Traffic maneuvered in a coordinated mess, people walked through the streets, paying more attention to their mobiles than to their surroundings. He didn’t need to remember life in Camelot to know that the transition would have been rough. Even with Merlin as a guide. Everything would have felt overwhelming - too busy, too full…

He stopped his thought there, because everything he’d felt for the last fifteen years suddenly made a whole lot more sense. And that was without memories as a reference point. It would have been 10 times worse if he’d had expectations. Everything seemed to be fitting into place now though. The contrast was stunning. In one day, he’d gone from a fruitless search to understand himself and his place in the world to being the savior king of Albion, returned from the dead, with the most famous sorcerer ever to live sitting in the seat next to him, looking at him like he’s afraid Arthur’s about to lose it.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t feel crazy.”

“That’s because you’re not.”

“But shouldn’t I feel like I am? Isn’t that how a sane person would feel?”

“Let me get this straight. You’re worried that you’re going crazy because you feel sane?”

“More or less.”

“Arthur. I should imagine it might feel like waking up.”

“Only the last 15 years haven’t been a dream.”

“Not a dream no. But not the full of reality either.”

-x-x-

At Merlin’s insistence, Arthur pulled off the carriageway at the public access site adjacent to St. Tydfil Forest. The place consisted of the single lane slip road that bowed out from A470, nine whole parking spaces, a few picnic tables, and a sign directing hikers and cyclist to the entrance onto the Taff Trail.

“If I’m going to meet your mother,” Merlin said as he reached into his bag and retrieved the electric razor Arthur had brought from Merlin’s house, “I want to make a good first impression.” Merlin wasn’t helping with those weird fiancé thoughts and Arthur had the distinct urge to throw something at him.

He waited in the car while Merlin went off to do his grooming. He reclined the seat a fraction and closed his eyes. Even lying back like this, his muscles were tense. He had to will them to relax. It felt like this was his first opportunity to rest in weeks, though it was really just a day. He’d been too busy fretting over Merlin or searching unwittingly for himself or evading the eye of anti-magic zealots, if that’s even what they were.

After too short a rest, Merlin was climbing back into the car with smooth cheeks and a hairless chin. Clean-shaven, he looked younger. More like himself.

“I need a haircut too.” Merlin ran a hand through his hair, soothing it into some semblance of order.

Arthur put the car in reverse and turned the wheel to back out of the parking space.

“So what about you? You still look the same. Has an enchantment been placed on you as well?”

“Oh, Arthur. You don’t realize at all, do you?”

“Apparently not. What are you on about?” He shifted the car into first gear and pulled away from the parking area.

“I’m a sorcerer.”

“Yes, I _know_ that.”

“A powerful one.”

“Sure.” He put on the break to wait for an opening back onto the carriageway.

“That kind of magic, it sustains me.”

“So it _is_ a spell.”

“No. What I mean is, I haven’t died.”

“What?” He scoffed at the suggestion. That would make Merlin—

“I know I don’t look it, but I’m a very old man, Arthur.”

Arthur had to put the car back into park, look at Merlin properly in the fading light. He could see now that his earlier assessment was wrong. He may look young, but there was a weight to his posture, a weariness in his eyes that had nothing to do with recent stress.   Merlin, his most loyal friend. He hasn’t just been looking for him for 15 years; he’d been waiting for him for more than 1500. What was he supposed to do with that kind of devotion? It went beyond the bounds of loyalty. It was something else. Something he didn’t even have a name for.

He couldn’t even begin to imagine what all that waiting must have been like, what Merlin must have been through in all those years. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t.” The words had a bitter edge.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” How could anyone have guessed? Even with that prophecy, any normal person would have given up after this long. That, or gone crazy. Arthur didn’t have the heart to make the joke.

“Nothing. Come on. I don’t want to argue.” Merlin turned to look out the window to his left. Arthur could see his expression reflected in the glass. He looked… tired, worn out. He thought Merlin would leave the topic at that, but after a short silence, Merlin added, “Any of your knights would have died for you. I would have too, no hesitation. As it turned out, I was the only one who could live for you.”

He should say something to that. Kings are supposed to be good with words—making speeches, pronouncing judgments. Arthur turned his attention back to the road and poured his focus into driving.

-x-x-

He had just stopped for a pair of pedestrians at the last intersection before the turn onto his mother’s road when another memory hit hard with no warning.

The young man with the dark curly hair stood before him, hating him. Blaming him. He lowered his sword. The man lunged forward to strike and Arthur didn’t move to defend.

“Arthur? Arthur, the road's clear.”

He came back to the present and let off the brake. “Sorry, I hesitated.”

“It’s fine,” Merlin sounded mildly amused for some reason, “we just don’t need you inspiring road rage on the streets of Merthyr.”

“No, I mean...”

“Another memory? What was it this time?”

“Mordred.”

Merlin went still beside him.

“It must have been Camlann.”

“ _Arthur_.” It wasn’t that he missed the chill in Merlin’s voice, but the memory still held power over him and he needed to talk about it.

“He stood in front of me and I knew what he was about. He attacked and I… I didn’t even raise my sword against him until after I was wounded.”

He put a hand to his ribs, to the scar he’d always carried below his heart. The pain was fresh for a moment, searing, then it was gone, just a memory. It was more proof of what Merlin said earlier. This was the same body he’d had so long ago.

Merlin swallowed heavily. “Arthur, please. I don’t want to hear any more about this. It’s enough I had to watch you die. I don’t need you to tell me about all the details that led to it.”

“It’s already over, Merlin. And here I am safe and sound.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier to hear.”

Had Merlin always been this attached to Arthur’s wellbeing or was it a byproduct of his death? He didn’t have time to dwell on the question, because he was soon pulling into a narrow drive and there was a woman inside the adjacent house who was sure to have plenty of questions of her own.


	6. Tangible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should have warned of this earlier, but this story is part of a planned 4 part series that will have escalating content ratings. I'm not sure yet if it will go up to Explicit, but part 2 will definitely be rated Mature.

Arthur announced their arrival with a sharp knock, then went in without waiting for a response. The delicious aroma of roast beef filled the air inside, prompting his mouth to water.

His mother walked through the door from the kitchen just as Merlin moved to stand beside him in the entryway. She froze. Maybe even after all of his reassurances, she’d still been expecting him to be injured. But no, it wasn’t Arthur she was staring at, it was Merlin. Ignoring the odd reaction, Merlin strode forward and stretched out his right hand.

“Hello, I’m Merlin.”

His mother looked down at the offered hand as though she’d forgotten what she was meant to do with it.

“Merlin, this is my mother, Judith Craddock.” Like using the name James, it had always felt a little unnatural to call her ‘mother.’ It felt even more so now that he knew who he really was, but after all she’d done for him, she deserved the title.

“It’s an honour to meet you, Mrs. Craddock.”

When she finally recovered, she pushed aside Merlin’s hand and wrapped her arms around him instead. Merlin didn’t seem to mind at first, then she moved a hand around to the back of his head and his body went rigid. He looked back at Arthur, wide-eyed. It lasted just long enough for the seeds of alarm to begin to take root, then the moment was over and Merlin closed his eyes, relaxed.

“I can’t thank you enough, Merlin. I’m grateful beyond words. Not many would risk themselves for a stranger like you did.” She pulled back slightly, putting both hands on his cheeks.  “Welcome.” Only then did she seem to realize she was being too familiar and let him go. “Please, make yourself at home.”

“Mother, Merlin isn’t a stranger.”

“Hmm?”

“We actually know each other,” Merlin said. “From before the accident.”

Judith frowned. “I don’t remember you ever mentioning… But there is _something_ about you.” She studied Merlin’s face from different angles then stepped back to take in the whole of him.

“This is the first you’ve met. _I_ didn’t even remember Merlin until I saw him yesterday. I knew him before.”

“Before?”

“As in, before I came to live with you.”

“My goodness, that means…”

“Yes,” Merlin said.

“You know all about him. Where he’s from, his parents, his real name!”

“Yes.”

She hugged Merlin again. Then came over to give Arthur a hug as well. “I’m so happy for you, my boy. I know how hard it’s been for you.” When she pulled away, she was crying. “Well now look at me!” She laughed.

She recomposed herself and wiped away the tears. “Come on then. You can’t leave me in suspense. James. I know you never liked that name. What is it really? What name did your parents give you?”

Arthur looked to Merlin. Was it really okay to be telling people? Would everyone think they were crazy? That they were making the whole thing up?

“Arthur.” Merlin said. “His name is Arthur.”

Judith only smiled, looked at Arthur. “Yes, of course. It suits you so much better.” She paused. “Are you asking people to use your given name? I think many people will find it hard to make the change.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it yet. I do prefer Arthur, but...”

“Very well then. And what of your parents?”

“They passed on many years ago,” Merlin said.

“My mother died giving birth to me.” He knew that from the history books.

“His father died a few years before Arthur…went missing.”

“I’m so sorry. What were their names? And your family name? We could visit their graves together if you like.”

Telling her his name was Arthur and that he had a friend named Merlin was one thing. If he tried telling her his parents were Uther Pendragon and Ygraine du Bois, well, that was something else entirely.

“Maybe later, Mrs. Craddock? Arthur still only remembers a few basics. The rest is coming, but it’s… well it’s stressful for him at the moment, I think.”

Arthur stomped down the urge to protest, realizing what Merlin was doing. _He_ didn’t know how much to tell her either.

“Of course. I don’t mean to push you, sweetheart.”

A timer went off in the kitchen and she excused herself.

Arthur waited until she was out of earshot before saying, “What are we going to do? I can’t just go around telling people that I’m King Arthur, returned from the dead, but I don’t want to lie to the woman who took me in.”

“Neither do I.”

Arthur blinked. He hadn’t expected agreement. Merlin was supposed to explain why lying was their only option, to make it okay. Surely he lied to people all the time. He had to, unless he wanted to end up in a mental institution or some secret lab or, worse yet, a shallow grave. Why would Judith be any different?

His phone buzzed in his pocket. The text from Owen was not unexpected, but the content of the message was.

          Garrett never showed.  
          What a slacker!  
          How’s friend?

Arthur sent back a quick reply.

          Dedication will be rewarded.   
          Friend doing better than expected.

He followed with one to Garrett just to make sure something hadn’t happened to him. Garrett was the one always pushing for more practice time. Just last month he insisted on practicing even though he had the flu. It was strange that he’d skipped a day.

Merlin hovered over his shoulder trying to read the screen of Arthur’s mobile. Arthur angled the phone in the opposite direction, not because he wanted to hide anything from Merlin, but purely because it would annoy him.

Merlin didn’t rise to the bait. “What’s that all about?” he said with an air of innocence, as if Arthur hadn’t forced him into asking.

Arthur considered the exchange a draw.

“A couple of co-workers and I have entered the World Police and Fire Games in the small bore team competition. We were supposed to practice this afternoon.” He watched Merlin for a reaction. In all their conversations, they hadn’t yet discussed Arthur’s new life as a Detective Sergeant for the South Wales Police, but who knew what Veronica had told him.

All Merlin managed was a deadpan, “small bore.”

“Yes, _Merlin_. It’s a .22 caliber rifle.”

Merlin groaned. “I should have known you’d force me to learn some ridiculous new manner of killing people. Did you choose that yourself?”

“It’s just targets, Merlin, and the bullets are tiny.” He held up his hand with a small gap between his thumb and forefinger to indicate the size. “And no, it was my boss’s idea, actually.” How had Merlin been able to guess? “I would rather compete in the police action pistol, but there is no team category for that competition and my boss thought it would be more prestigious for our branch if we did well as a team. Is there something wrong with it?”

“I suppose it’s no worse than the mace. Or jousting. Or a melee. As long as you don’t make me hold the target above my head.”

“Why on earth would I make you do _that_?”

Merlin tilted his head to the side a fraction, cocked an eyebrow, and pressed his lips into a line. Was he implying… Arthur hadn’t actually done that before, had he?

Judith called them to dinner and Arthur led the way to a small dining table laden with food. The plated roast beef sat in the center, surrounded by bowls of varying sizes for the potatoes, cooked carrots, cabbage, and gravy. A basket of Yorkshire puddings was wedged in between two plates.

The meal started pleasantly enough. Merlin kept the conversation to safe topics, recent events mostly, but also asking questions about Judith herself. He didn’t begin lying until Judith started asking after his history. Arthur thought he could see pieces of truth mixed in, could see the way that Merlin tried to be as honest as possible.

When asked about his education, Merlin said, “I grew up in a very remote area and was home schooled for a while by my mother. Eventually, she sent me to live with a family friend who served as a mentor. I would never have made it through all my tests without him.”

_I need a physician.  
                    Merlin can do far more than me. Far more than you can ever imagine._

“Gaius.” He blurted the name without thought.

“That’s right.” Merlin smiled, but it was halfhearted.

“You remember him, sweetheart?”

“Yes!” He could picture the man—white hair to his shoulders, skin sagging a bit with age, and keen eyes that could see straight through any attempt at concealing the truth.

“But for Arthur to know him, you would have been so young.” Judith said to Merlin. “Surely your mother didn’t send you off at that age.”

“No.” Merlin said. “I was a young man then. But Gaius was a friend of Arthur’s father too, so he’s known him his whole life.”

“He had this thing he did when he thought you were acting the fool.”

“With his eyebrows.” Merlin did a remarkable impression.

“That’s it!”

After that, his mother began telling Merlin about their first few months together as a family and that’s when it all started going wrong. She had a few stock stories—the ones she always liked to tell when the topic came up. He had a sinking feeling he knew which one she was going to tell this time.

“No, Mother, please. Merlin doesn’t want to hear this story.”

_You have a face like a wounded bear._

“He has a delicate disposition.”

“I do not.”

Arthur suppressed a groan; there was a glint in Merlin’s eye. All he’d managed to do with his protest was pique the man’s interest.

“Please continue Mrs. Craddock. This story sounds fascinating.”

“Merlin, please call me—” And for one terrifying second, Arthur thought she was going to say, ‘call me mum,’ and complete the whole ridiculous fiancé introduction routine. She finished by saying, “Judith,” and he heaved a sigh of relief.

She moved right into her story. “This happened shortly after I adopted him. I’d planted a vegetable garden on a little plot of land behind our house. The trouble was, a rabbit kept nibbling away the plants as they sprouted. I was so frustrated after all the work I’d put in. Arthur saw this and set about with a plan.”

Merlin looked at Judith, a little confused, then to Arthur. Realization dawned. “Oh, no. He didn’t.”

_I don’t think you should have killed it._  
_We were hunting. That’s what you do._

His mother hid a smile behind a hand when she realized that Merlin knew exactly where this story was going.

“He did. Made the sling himself and everything. I was horrified. He brought the animal into the kitchen, all limp and with a spot of blood on its head. He was so proud of himself for solving my little problem.”

“I can imagine.”

“He even expected me to clean the poor thing for our dinner.”

Arthur wanted to hide. “As I recall, you were able to replant and we had a fine harvest.” Under the table would suffice. He straightened his back instead.

“You see? Even to this day, he’s completely unrepentant.”

“Arthur’s father made sure that he learned to hunt. You might even say that—”

_I’ve been trained to kill since birth._

“—he was trained to kill since birth.”

“That sounds awful!”

“His father wasn’t exactly a gentle person.”

Uther didn’t have the best reputation in the history books and from what little he could remember, the criticisms were at least partially justified. Still, the man was his father and he could remember loving him.

“Sorry, Arthur, but you know it’s true.”

He was rather impressed that Merlin seemed more sympathetic to Arthur than he was bitter toward Uther.

Having cleared his plate, he helped himself to a second serving of beef, several extra spoonfuls of potatoes, more cabbage, and another Yorkshire pudding. He topped it all with a generous helping of gravy. Merlin raised an eyebrow at the contents of his plate. Arthur ignored the look. He’d skipped lunch; he was allowed to be hungry.

“When was the last time you ate?”

Was Merlin really mothering him? Here? With Judith sitting right next to him? “I grabbed something at a petrol station on the way up to Knighton.”

“That was this morning.”

“I’ve been busy. Taking care of you, if I remember correctly.”

“That’s hardly an excuse. I can take care of myself.”

“Sweetheart, I know you must be excited about regaining your memories, but Merlin is right, you still have to take care of yourself.” He should have known they would get on, that they would gang up on him.

He rolled his eyes and tuned them out for a while.

The beef was tender and juicy. Even the vegetables were delicious—perfectly seasoned and not overcooked. No one made a roast dinner better than this.

He’d been a little over ambitious in his portion sizes, but he slogged his way through the last few bites. He wasn’t going to let a little fullness stop him from clearing his plate. The minor discomfort was better than giving Merlin more fodder for commentary about his eating habits.

When he finished, he leaned back in his seat and started paying attention to the conversation again. His mother was saying, “That was back when Arthur was thinking he would join the military. I’m so glad he didn’t. It’s nerve wracking enough him being in the police. If he were in a war zone, I’m not sure how I’d have coped.”

“Why didn’t he?” They must have noticed that Arthur wasn’t paying attention and carried on as if he wasn’t even there.

“He had a bad experience.”

“That is _not_ why I changed my mind.” Who knows what lies they’d been trading while he’d been preoccupied.

”Sure it is. You were all set to sign up until you went on that trip. You were going to be an officer.”

“What trip?” Merlin turned to look at him.

“Some of my friends and I went to France for a week after we finished our A-levels.”

“Arthur got sick on the second day.”

“I don’t remember ever feeling so ill. It felt like I was dying.” It had, quite literally, felt _worse_ than dying. “I had to come home early. As soon as I got back, I started feeling better. I was fine by the next day.”

Merlin didn’t look surprised. “So now you have an aversion to leaving the country. That wouldn’t work out well for a military deployment.”

“I’m not scared, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, but you associate the experience with illness.”

Merlin looked like he had more of an explanation but held off. Maybe it was a side effect of the enchantment that’s been on him this whole time. If he was supposed to play a role in dealing with some huge crisis, maybe it was an incentive to keep him in a position where he could be most effective. Maybe it was something else entirely.

After dinner, they spent several hours still sitting at the table talking. Before long it was after 9 and he had work in the morning. It would be a very long night if he took Merlin to Knighton then waited for a train back to Cardiff.

“You both should stay here tonight,” his mother suggested. “Merlin did just get out of hospital after all. He should have someone check on him every now and then.”

“You can have my bed, Merlin.” His mother had turned his room into a guest bedroom when he moved out but he still referred to it as _his_ room.

“What? No. I’m not taking your bed. I couldn’t. I can sleep on the floor perfectly well, or a couch, or wherever won’t be an inconvenience.”

“No, we couldn’t allow that, Merlin. After risking your life for Arthur as you did? And you must still be recovering. How about this. I’ll sleep in the guest room as that has the smaller bed and you two can share the bed in my room. It’s plenty large for two so I don’t want to hear any complaining.” She used a tone that in no way indicated that at least part of that statement was directed at a guest she’d only known for a few short hours. “Not from either of you.”

And all Arthur could think of was—

 _I am prepared to face all manner of horrors in this world, but if you think I am sharing this bed with you_ …

Which had been a massive overreaction on his part. Merlin hadn’t suggested anything close to that. He’d merely mentioned the word ‘bed’ and Arthur’s mind had leapt to sleeping side by side. As though they hadn’t done that before.

Judith got up from the table saying something about fresh linens, obviously considering the issue settled.

He found words coming out of his mouth without thought. “It won’t be so different from that time at your village.”

_Come on, stop pretending to be interesting._

“I am not sleeping with your feet in my face again.”

Arthur couldn’t help but laugh. He like this. For the moment, it was easy to forget that there were still gaping holes in his memory.

“And I get my own blanket.”

Arthur snickered.

“What? You’re a covers hog!”

What an odd thing for Merlin to know. Arthur found himself glad that his mother was out of the room at the time. She returned a minute later carrying a cardboard box containing a few things he’d left behind when he moved out.

“I’ve managed to find some clothes that will do well enough for sleeping.” She turned to address Arthur. “I was thinking of taking this down to the donation center the other day. If you want any of this, you should take it with you when you leave in the morning.”

There was a reason he’d left the things in that box behind. It was all too small, worn out, or both. He gave Merlin a face.

“It’s better than sleeping in the clothes you’ve been wearing all day—or in your case, two days. Thank you, Judith.”

Had Merlin always been this polite?

“You boys have a shower and we can wash up what you’re wearing now for tomorrow.”

Arthur decided he could be polite too. “Merlin, you first.”

Merlin seemed surprised at the offer, but only said, “Okay. Thanks.”

Judith handed Merlin a stack of fabric. Arthur could make out a towel, one of his old team shirts, and a pair of jersey shorts. Was it weird for Merlin to be wearing his old clothes? No. Why would it be?

_You are not wearing that to my wedding, Merlin. Look through my old things for something presentable. Take it to the tailor if you must._

He prepared the bed with fresh sheets and grabbed the requested extra blanket from the trunk at the end of the bed while Merlin was in the shower. It gave him a good opportunity to think on his own.

His wedding... If he concentrated, focused on the little details of what he could already recall, surely he would be able to remember such an important milestone in his life. It had worked before. He started with the image of Merlin rummaging through his wardrobe.

Merlin held this and that against his chest to judge the fit. Tossing aside his jacket, he pulled on one of Arthur’s old doublets. He stretched out his arms and the sleeves fell short of his wrists.

His wedding…

Merlin was wearing that dark red doublet again, except the sleeves had been removed and reattached with a narrow cord that matched the lacing down the front. When he reached out to fuss over Arthur’s hair, the sleeves were the perfect length.

The _wedding_ …

Arthur waited on the first step of the dais, his crown digging into the sides of his head. His palms were clammy. A bead of sweat rolled down his back. _Deep breaths_ , he told himself. _Don’t panic._

He turned to get a look at the crowd. Most people were chatting quietly with their neighbours. Merlin stood in the front row, watching him. He looked proud, confident. Arthur’s anxiety melted away. Merlin approved of Guinevere. He was doing the right thing.

“It’s your turn, Arthur.”

Arthur looked up to see Merlin dressed in his old clothes, running a towel vigorously through his hair.

He left for the bathroom without any more than the minimum required acknowledgement. What did it say about him that his most prominent memory from his wedding day was not his first glimpse of his bride in her wedding dress, saying his vows, or the culmination of his wedding night, but instead, the comforting presence of an advisor?

Finding himself well and truly exhausted, he leaned against the wall of the shower for several minutes as the warm water relaxed his muscles. He sped through the rest of his shower, eager for sleep.

The shirt his mother had found for him to wear was so tight he considered foregoing it altogether. The cotton pyjama bottoms were worn to the point that there were holes in the fabric around the drawstring waistband.

Once he was dressed, he checked his mobile one last time. There was still no response from Garrett with his excuse for skipping target practice earlier. Arthur had skipped too, but at least he’d let everyone know he wouldn’t be there. He would just have to get the story tomorrow when he saw the man at work.

Merlin was sitting up on the near side of the bed with the extra blanket already over his lap when Arthur walked back into the bedroom.

“Oh, sorry.” Merlin said as he climbed over to the other side of the bed. “I forgot.”

“What are you doing?”

“You sleep on the left.”

He did? He had to think for a moment. Yes… the left side of the bed is the one he would pick. He’d never thought about it before. Didn’t have cause. He usually slept smack dab in the middle. He wasn’t exactly in the habit of having overnight guests or even being a guest. His unusual circumstances went a long way to explaining some of his more… old-fashioned views.

He laid down and flipped off the bedside lamp. He stared at the ceiling in the dark, waiting for the rustling of Merlin’s blankets to settle down.

When the room was finally quiet, he said, “Why do you suppose my memories have mostly been centered on you so far?” It wasn’t quite the question he wanted to ask, but maybe it would be close enough.

“It sounds like you’re remembering your last few days. I was the only person with you when you died.”

“Sure, but it hasn’t been restricted to that. Shouldn’t I have important memories of other people, too? Events and battles? Knights, the Round Table, Excalibur? I know I was married. Shouldn’t I at least remember my wife?”

“I’m sure those memories will come.”

_Why did you never tell me?_  
_I wanted to but…_

“Didn’t I love her?”

“Of course, yes. It’s just…”

“What are you getting at?”

“I don’t mean to devalue your feelings. Or hers, because she did love you, Arthur.”

“Will you just spit it out already?”

“There’s nothing wrong with an ordinary, mortal love.”

“You think love is ordinary?”

“I don’t mean unimportant, just…many people fall in love. They get married, build families, and die. Some people are born again and live new lives with new loves.”

_If she feels as you do, she’ll wait for you._

“She’s been reborn? Lived whole new lives?”

“Several times. Three at least. I might have missed some.”

“Is she alive now?”

“I doubt it. She died not too long ago. She’d been in her 90s by then.”

“She married?”

“Not this last time. Her fiancé died in the Second World War. Saved his unit in the process. He has a tendency to get himself killed in selfless acts of courage.”

“You mean Lancelot.”

“You remember what he did? At the Vale?”

“No. But all the stories say he was the most noble of the knights.” That reputation didn’t seem to match up with the stories of an affair between him and Guinevere, but, well, a lot of the stories were wrong. Most said Merlin was already an old man when Arthur was born and he was rarely mentioned as anything other than a trusted advisor. Certainly not as a friend, or whatever it was that they were.

“But if they were to be married in their most recent lives… You said people find new loves. Theirs wasn’t new, was it?”

“Arthur…”

“I’m not upset. You don’t need to protect me. I don’t even remember caring for her.”

“But you will.”

For a moment, Arthur was walking across a stone courtyard with Merlin at his side.

_Look at the bright side. You’ve still got me._

He’d scoffed at the comment, but it _had_ made him feel better at the time. It made him feel better now too, because his wife may not have waited for him, but Merlin had.

-x-x-

The feel of Merlin’s eyes on him pulled Arthur out of his sleep.

“What are you doing?” It came out more mumbled than he would have liked. Blinking his eyes a few times helped resolve the blurred mass to his left into Merlin sitting on his knees, looking down at Arthur.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“That vulture stare of yours cou—” He cut off, thinking better of his intended joke. Talk of waking the dead might be funny for him considering his particular circumstances but Merlin likely wouldn’t find it so. And he was sure that if Merlin’s gaze really did have such mystical properties, he would have awoken more than a millennium ago. He tried a different approach. “Are you going to answer my question?”

There was a long pause before Merlin said, “You may not feel like you’re losing your grip on reality, but I’m sitting here wondering if I haven’t finally lost mine.”

“How do you mean?”

Merlin let out a shaky breath but his voice was flat when he began his explanation. “I watched you die, Arthur. You’d stopped breathing by the time I got you to the lake. And when I last… I couldn’t feel a pulse. You were gone and I couldn’t follow. Now here you are eating roast beef and potatoes, walking down the street, getting me into trouble of all sorts just like you always did—not that I’m complaining. It’s just… surreal.”

When he’d been injured, Arthur had needed to _feel_ that Merlin was alive, not just to know. Maybe that was what Merlin needed too.

He reached out, took hold of Merlin’s closest hand and placed it just off center on his chest, kept his hand on top so that Merlin couldn’t take his back. Not until he had time to process the life beating in his chest, the air flowing in and out of his lungs.

Merlin’s hand was cool against his chest, the heat from his skin leaching out even with the fabric of his shirt as a barrier.

“Arthur, I’m so sorry.”

He reached up with his free hand and placed it on the back of Merlin’s head. If he’d bothered to think it through, it wasn’t something he would have done. If he’d thought it through, he’d have remembered that he’d been dying the last time he’d done the same thing. And so, not even sure of what he was intending, he used the weight of his arm to pull Merlin closer instead.

He closed his eyes as Merlin’s forehead came to rest against his own. He took a deep breath. This close, he could smell the fresh, botanical scent of shampoo and soap clinging to Merlin’s hair and skin.

He didn’t realize Merlin was crying until he felt wet drops on his skin. Shortly after, Merlin’s carefully controlled breathing broke into outright sobs.

He was wholly unequipped to handle this situation. He didn’t even understand why the man was upset. Wasn’t Merlin supposed to be happy? Relieved?

A jumbled mess of memories spilled in.

 _Merlin, if I die…_    
_I can’t let you die._    
_No man is worth your tears._    
_You’re my friend and I don’t want to lose you._  
_You’re not going to cry are you?_    
_I know it’s hard for you to understand how I feel._    
_I’ve never worried about dying._  
_I will take your place._  
_This is my fault and I’m sorry._  
_Take me with you, please._  
_I have to come with you._

All he could do was pull Merlin tighter.

“I should have been able to save you.”

“You did everything you could.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

“But it was. For me, it was. I know how much you like to ignore the things I tell you Merlin, but having you there with me… I’m not sure how I would have faced it without you.”

Merlin let out a loud exhale and silence took over the room.

When Merlin finally spoke again, his words were soft enough for the darkest secret. It took Arthur a few seconds to figure out what he’d said: _I’ve missed you_.

Merlin pulled back, scrubbed his tear trails away, and sniffed loudly to counteract the inevitable runny nose. “I’ll have you know, I didn’t just spend the last fifteen hundred years crying over you.”

“Course not.” He wondered if he was pulling one of his faces again. Condescending placation, Merlin might call it.

“Maybe I’m not fully healed just yet. Not quite feeling myself.”

Arthur gave Merlin his best Gaius impression to let him know how he felt about that particular excuse. Merlin looked ready to argue, but Arthur preempted any potential retort. “Get some rest.”

-x-x-

The weather had turned cold earlier than expected this year. Judith pulled her shawl tighter against the biting wind, except her name wasn’t Judith. Not here. The discrepancy didn’t concern her. Things were often that way in dreams.

She reached down, bending her knees more than her back, and added a few sticks suitable for the early stages of a fire to her bundle.

She’d been stockpiling firewood for months now in anticipation of the difficulties before her. Alone, a baby on the way. This wasn’t going to be easy, but she was determined to make it work. To be a good mother. She smoothed a hand across her swollen belly and her unborn responded with an eager kick.

“You’ll be here soon enough. No need to rush, little one.” Her baby nudged her again as if to argue.

She turned as the sound of snapping twigs and rustling leaves drew her attention. An old woman shuffled closer, her back bent, her shoulders hunched.

“May I?” The old woman’s voice sounded far less feeble than the woman looked herself.

Then the woman’s hands were on her, both palms flush against her abdomen, feeling at her pregnancy. The old woman turned her head to the side to look up at her and smiled. A dark gap at the side of her mouth showed where a tooth should have been.

“I will be gone before he grows into his destiny. It is the honour of my life to meet you and your unborn son.”

“Son?” The midwife claimed she would bear a daughter, that she was carrying too high for it to be a boy.

“He will be strong, like his father and full of heart, like you. His future is bright, a blazing sun. I can scarcely see. It’s blinding.” The woman stared off into the distance, unblinking.

She’d hear of people like this. She had experience in the treatment of those who are special. Suddenly alert, she spun, searching the area around them. When she looked back, the old woman was gone and the trees replaced themselves with the familiar stone walls of her home.

She lay on her side, exhausted. The midwife worked at the foot of the bed, packing up her things. Merlin was a tiny bundle next to her, swaddled in a tattered, but clean sheet. His eyelids drifted shut now that he was fed. “I can’t promise you an easy life, but…”

She gasped. A ball rolled uphill across the ground and into Merlin’s reaching hands. He sat back from the riverbank while she knelt at the water’s edge, scrubbing at the laundry. A girl she didn’t recognize, perhaps 12 or 13 years of age with a dark green kerchief over pale blond hair, knelt a dozen paces away wringing out a shirt. The girl looked at Merlin and smiled. Had she seen?

“Merlin,” she hissed, dropping the wash and scrambling up the low bank, “you mustn’t!” But he was still a baby, just barely able to sit up on his own, and he didn’t understand her words, only that she was upset. He took a deep breath preparing to wail and—

Merlin stood tall before her. She had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. He’d grown so quickly, though he was still a boy in many ways. He had his share of burdens—the everyday trials of a peasant, the stigma of an unwed mother, the pain of keeping his magic hidden—but he was unscarred by difficult choices or heartbreak. He was too young yet for regret.

“It is time for you to go.” She’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t cry. This was the only way. Their village was too small for him. He stood out and it was no longer safe. With Will now a party to the secret, who was next? “I’ve packed you enough food for the journey. You remember the way?”

“You worry too much, Mother.”

“Here, take this letter with you.” She pulled his head down with both hands so that she could kiss his forehead. “Never forget that I love you dearly, Merlin.”

He turned to go and in the next moment he huddled before the empty fire pit, arms wrapped around himself as if to keep warm. Her excitement at seeing him faded quickly as she took in his slouched posture, his slow reactions.

“What’s wrong?”

Her heart sank further as Merlin informed her in a dull monotone that “Arthur is dead.”

She never saw him cry.

He helped with the chores without a word, complaint or otherwise.

He spent all day chopping firewood, using muscle alone.

He sat at the table, despondent, still grieving weeks later. It broke her heart to see him like this. There was an emptiness inside him. He was half of a whole and even the promise that he wouldn’t be broken forever was not enough to fill the gap.

“You must eat, Merlin.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He hadn’t been hungry yesterday either. Or the day before.

She’d experienced something akin to this depression when his father left, but in their time together, they’d created something worth pulling herself up for. Merlin too had created something wonderful. He and his king had forged together the beginnings of a great kingdom and though Arthur was gone, the kingdom still needed Merlin, as surely as a newborn needed a parent to nurture and protect.

And as for Arthur, if the prophesy Merlin had told her about was to be believed, then all he needed to do was have patience. Patience and a little faith. She would help him see that. When he finally understood, she would have nothing left to teach him.

Merlin was barely more than a silhouette against the bright light streaming in from the open door. His few belongings were packed away in the bag slung across his chest. He turned to look back at her.

“Goodbye, Mother.” The determination in his voice made it sound as if he were saying those words for the last time.

-x-x-

Judith woke with tears on her cheeks, but couldn’t for the life of her remember what had been so upsetting. Reasoning it was for the best, she didn’t grasp at the remnants of the dream, but allowed them to fade to nothing.

She glanced at the clock. It was past 2 in the morning. Arthur would no doubt be sleeping. He never seemed to have trouble falling asleep. Merlin would likely be out as well with all the stress his body has been under recently. She should check on him.

She padded down to the master bedroom on bare feet and paused in front of the open door, surprised to hear voices. She couldn’t make out the words, just the tone. Even with light from the street filtering in through the curtains, it took her a moment to realize that Merlin was actually crying and that Arthur was doing his best to comfort him. She’d never seen her son like this. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have been concerned with the immediate depth of their reconnection, but she felt an instant liking for Merlin as well. The only other time she’d had this strong of an initial reaction to meeting someone was when she saw Arthur for the first time.

It took her six months after her husband died, leaving her childless, before she decided to adopt. Everyone told her she was crazy to take on single parenthood willingly.

She’d wanted to take in a baby, maybe a toddler, but then there had been Arthur, standing apart from the other residents of the children’s home. While the others ran and played or chatted amongst themselves, he stood back and watched, as if it were his responsibility to look after them.

She’d taken a half step forward before stopping herself.

“That’s James,” the director of the children’s home had told her. “We don’t know his story. It’s like he fell from the sky.”

“I didn’t see anything about this on the news or in the papers.”

“We wanted to protect the boy’s privacy. We believe he was neglected and abused by his family. He has an unusual number of scars and there haven’t been any children reported missing that match his description. He’ll probably be here until he’s eighteen. Not many want to adopt a boy his age and most foster parents don’t want to deal with the language issue.”

_Language?_

“It’s a shame too. He’s a good kid. Very mature for his age.”

Then he’d turned, looked directly at her. After a moment, he seemed to make a decision and began giving her the same treatment he used on the rest of the children—like he intended to protect her. That was when she knew she was meant to care for him.

Merlin sat up abruptly, Arthur’s hands following after him as if he wasn’t ready to let go and she was well beyond feeling the casual intruder. She returned to bed and stayed put for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has everyone seen the deleted scenes from Series 4 and 5? They include a couple of great scenes that I'm using as canon. The first is from Episode 409 and deals with Arthur freaking out after deciding to ask Gwen to marry him. It's the scene I've pulled the hand-me-down doublet from. The other was cut from Episode 501 and deals with the sleeping on the left business. You can find the cut scenes on YouTube if you haven't seen them yet.


	7. Off

Judith woke to the smell of coffee and the sounds of cooking. She slipped on her robe and headed into the kitchen expecting her son. She should have known better. Arthur never had been one to spend much effort making his own breakfast.

Merlin spotted her, pulled out a chair, and sat her down before she could offer any help.

“I hope you don’t mind me using your kitchen like this.”

A plate with an omelet, a piece of toast, and a few slices of grilled tomato was set before her. Odd. She could have sworn she was out of fresh tomatoes. She had tinned, yes, but these were definitely fresh.  

She stared at it a moment.

“I wanted to thank you for your hospitality. Coffee? Tea?”

When was the last time someone made her breakfast? Being a mother was rewarding, but sometimes it was a thankless job. And ever since Arthur moved out, it was just her.

“Is everything all right, Judith?”

She blinked, turned to look at him properly.

“If you don’t like eggs—”

“No, no. Eggs are perfect. Thank you. Coffee please.”

“Sugar? Cream?”

“Just one sugar today.”

A steaming cup joined the plate and Merlin remained standing just to her right hand side, watching her. She picked up her fork and took a bite to see if this would appease him. The omelet had mushrooms, leeks, and cheese. “It’s very good!”

He smiled at her brightly. “I’ll just go wake Arthur then.”

She watched him go with a sense of wonderment. He was polite and charming. Arthur was obviously very attached to him judging by how they’d interacted last night. Judith couldn’t help but wonder why. When Arthur had known Merlin before, they shouldn’t have been close friends, not with the obvious age difference. Arthur would have just been a child. When he was 9, Merlin would have been a teenager, 14, maybe 15. It didn’t seem likely that they would have been close. And even if Arthur were older than she thought and Merlin were younger than she suspected, they’d only been kids. They wouldn’t have been emotionally mature enough to have the depth of feelings they seemed to already have after just a day of reacquaintance.

Merlin walked back into the kitchen a few minutes later, chuckling to himself. “It’s nice to see that some things never change, don’t you think Judith?”

She took a cautious sip of her coffee. “I’m surprised you managed to avoid yelling.”

“I learned the tricks to waking Arthur without getting my head chopped off a long time ago. The promise of food is always a good start. Ah, and here he is.” Her son walked into the kitchen, bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor.

“Why am I up so early?”

“You have to go to work today.”

Her son grumbled.

“No excuses. Maybe you’ll finally learn the value of a real day’s work.”

Merlin set a plate identical to her own in front of her son.

“There’s no meat on this plate, Merlin.”

“Arthur!” She had never heard her son be so rude.

Merlin was unfazed. “You’ll just have to live with what I’ve given you. I’m sure you’ll manage to survive.”

Arthur didn’t look appeased, but started in on his meal anyway.

After a short time, Judith said, “Aren’t you going to eat too?” Merlin was standing at the edge of her vision, watching Arthur eat. It made her nervous, but worse was the way Arthur seemed completely oblivious.

“Merlin will have already eaten. Isn’t that right Merlin?”

“Can’t very well take care of you on an empty stomach, now can I?”

“You don’t have to take care of me.”

“Don’t I? Remind me who it was that saved your sorry backside...again.”

“You’re going to be completely insufferable, aren’t you? It’s a good thing I’m around now to keep your attitude in check.”

 _“My_ attitude?”

“You’ve let your reputation give you a big head.”

Judith wasn’t aware that Merlin had a reputation. She wanted to ask, but the boys were in their own little world.

“That’s rich coming from you!”

They eyed each other for several long seconds and broke out into grins before Arthur scoffed and looked away, returned to his breakfast with more concentration than was necessary.

“Won’t you at least sit with us?”

“Come on then, you’re making Mother nervous, standing there like a dull-witted sentry.”

Merlin finally sat down and the boys began discussing their plans for the day.

After Arthur finished his plate, he leaned back as though expecting Merlin to bus his plate for him. She stood and retrieved the dishes before Merlin had the chance. She said, “Sweetheart, aren’t you going to thank your friend for making you such a nice breakfast?”

Arthur looked confused for a moment, as though he had just woken from a fog and was surprised to find himself in this particular time and place. “Oh. Of course. Thank you, Merlin.”

Judith refused to allow Merlin to help her with the dishes. Instead, he busied himself in preparing to leave while Arthur changed back into clothes that actually fit properly. A short while later, the two boys were standing in the living room preparing to leave.

Merlin held out Arthur’s jacket as though Arthur were a child or Merlin were a doting husband. And as though none of this were odd to either of them, Arthur slid into the sleeves one arm at a time. Merlin tugged the jacket collar to lay just so and brushed down the shoulders.

“Arthur, a word before you leave?”

“I’ll be waiting in the car,” Merlin said before he walked over to Judith. He embraced her in a tight hug. “Thank you. For everything. I… Thank you.”

Judith couldn’t help but feel that when he said ‘everything,’ he was talking about more than the food and lodging.

“We’ll see each other again,” he said before walking out the door.

Arthur said, “I’ll be late for work if I don’t leave soon.”

“This won’t take more than a minute. I just wanted to remind you of your manners.”

“I’m not a child, Mother.”

“No. But you seem to have forgotten. It’s plain to see that Merlin cares for you a great deal. And you for him—”

“Mother, _please_ —”

“I’m only saying, make sure you don’t take advantage of his generosity. He’s not your slave.”

“No, he’s my… My….” And the poor dear, he looked honestly confused.

“He’s your _friend_.”

“Yes, of course. My closest friend.” The confusion lessened, but didn’t disappear altogether.

She gave him a reassuring pat on the cheek. He’d figure out his feelings in his own time.

-x-x-

Arthur climbed into the passenger seat of Merlin’s car seeing as its owner already occupied the driver’s side.

“Are you okay to drive?”

“I’m fine.”

He wasn’t certain he should bring it up, but he did anyway. “You weren’t so sure last night.”

“I got enough rest.” Merlin patted his ribs below his heart. “See? As good as new.”

“What about your head?”

Merlin rapped his knuckles just above his temple. “No pain.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. We both know your head is empty.”

When Merlin only laughed, Arthur decided that he would allow Merlin to drive him to the railway station.

Merlin turned on the radio and switched through the stations until he landed on the news. “We should probably start paying attention to this sort of thing.”

“The news?”

“Yeah. Might give us a clue about what’s to come. Or maybe just an early warning.”

Oh. Right. Time of need something or other. Arthur wasn’t fully convinced. The world had gone through a hell of a lot since he was wounded at Camlann. If he hadn’t been needed in all that time, what could possibly happen now? Sure, there were wars, but there were always wars. And he’d already been living here for 15 years and nothing significant had happened so far.

The segment on the radio was an interview with a woman who’d been robbed. Arthur listened with half an ear. He got enough of that at work.

“It was a nightmare,” the woman on the radio said. “I felt helpless, but I had my daughter there. I told her to stay behind—”

_…us, Your Highness. Bertrand and I will protect you._

The bandits had come out of nowhere.

Arthur stumbled back a step. Around him, men were falling to the ground, some with arrows protruding from their body, some clutching at gaping wounds, some perfectly still.

He’d always imagined what this would be like, but even the conflicts he’d witnessed from a safe distance, tutors beside him explaining strategy and tactics, couldn’t have prepared him for this—his first, real battle. His hand shook even as it went to the sword at his hip. He knew how to use it. He’d been training with it for as long as he could remember, but it was so different here with the screams and the blood and the clang of metal on metal, metal on flesh, metal on bone.

Sir Bertrand went down to one knee with an arrow in the side of his thigh. Sir Madog took a step away from Arthur to deflect a pair of men working in tandem. In the space that opened between the two knights, a brawny man with a battle-axe held high above his head came barreling through. A calm voice in the back of Arthur’s mind called the man an idiot. He was leaving himself wide open by holding his weapon in that manner.

The sword in front of Arthur began to move. He didn’t even have to think. He’d completed the exercises and drills so many times, it was automatic. It didn’t matter that he was scared witless. One second the man was charging, the next, he was lying on the ground bleeding, then coughing, then staring at the side of the road with vacant eyes.

Tears threatened to spill down Arthur’s cheeks. He’d never killed a man before.

“My daughter was so brave at the time, but now she has trouble sleeping. I try to reassure her. I say—”

_I’m proud of you today, Arthur. Camelot is proud of you._

His father’s voice was so calm, so steady, but even back within the castle walls, even sitting at the table in his own chambers, he still felt rattled by the events of the day. He wouldn’t let it show. For once in Arthur’s life, his father was _proud_.

 _We’ve received word of a camp of druids not far away. I was going to send Sir Breunor to lead the party, but after your actions today, I see that you are ready for more responsibility._ You _will lead the men._

Arthur wasn’t ready! What he had thought a battle, Sir Bertrand called a minor scuffle, barely worthy of note, but for the fact that Arthur had taken part. Arthur’s father didn’t seem to understand that all he’d done was defend himself. His training had taken over. That wasn’t at all the same as leading a group of soldiers in an attack.

_I’ll do it. Thank you, Father._

“Arthur, you’re trembling.”

Arthur stared at the hand on his arm. It took his brain a second to catch up to what was happening. Lingering in the back of his mind was a sickening cacophony. It would have made sense had it been the shouts of knights and bandits, but it wasn’t. It was the wails of innocent women, the cries of helpless children. It was cutting flesh and burning homes and the blood rushing in his ears so loud he couldn’t even think, let alone move.

He didn’t know what it meant. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Maybe some memories were best left buried.

“I’m not trembling, _Merlin_. It was a shiver. There’s a chill this morning.” He reached forward to adjust the heat setting on the dash even though he was already perfectly warm.

“If that’s the case, turning up the heat’s not going to do you much good.”

“And you know that, do you Merlin?”

“Yeah. Because we’re already here.”

Arthur looked out the window. Merlin had pulled the car up to the kerb to let him off near the ticket booth. A train was pulling into the station. He needed to be on it when it left.

“Arthur, maybe you shouldn’t be going to work this morning. Take a personal day.”

What Merlin suggested was tempting, but he had a responsibility.

“You space out when you remember something. Did you realize that? Do you want to explain why that is to your coworkers?”

“One day isn’t going to be enough, if that’s what you’re trying to avoid.”

“It won’t hurt either. Give yourself time to adjust. You’ve had a big shock. You are allowed to take time for yourself. You’re not the only detective sergeant in Cardiff.

He was disappointed with himself that he let Merlin talk him into it so easily, but those screams…

Maybe just this once, Merlin was right.

“Come on, just phone your supervisor.”

“You know, I don’t remember you being so bossy.”

Merlin laughed. “My attitude is _not_ what has changed.”

“Then what has?”

“Your inclination to listen.”

“I always listened to you.” He must have. All the histories say Merlin was his most respected advisor and he didn’t see any reason not to believe it.

“Yeah, you’d listen. Then you would call me an idiot and ignore me. There’s a big difference between hearing and following advice. You’d end up taking my suggestions eventually though. Don’t worry. I’m sure that as you remember more, things will go back to the way they were.”

Arthur wasn’t so sure. Death has a way of changing people, bringing things into prospective.

Merlin pulled away from the kerb so that he wasn’t blocking traffic and into the adjacent car park while Arthur took out his phone. Merlin turned the engine off and Arthur dialed. He was expecting to get his boss’s voice mail considering the time, but the man in question answered the phone with a curt greeting.

Arthur explained his need for a personal day in as few words as possible.

“Great, now I’m down by two,” his boss said.

“What do you mean?”

“I got a text a few minutes ago notifying me that Garrett hasn’t showed up yet. He was supposed to be in two hours ago so that he could help train the early shift. He’s going to need a _very_ good excuse if he wants to keep his job!”

Arthur ended the call without mentioning the fact that Garrett had skipped out on a previous commitment the day before as well.

Before putting his phone back in his pocket, he tried Garrett’s number. The call went straight to voice mail.

“So what do you want to do with your day off?” Merlin said.

Instead of answering the question, Arthur explained the situation with Garrett. He concluded, “So now he hasn’t shown up for work either and isn’t answering his phone. It’s not like him.”

“You’re worried about him.” Merlin didn’t even make it a question.

“He said something about mountain biking the Grwyne Fawr Reservoir Trail. It’s supposed to be a very challenging course—plenty of opportunity for injury if you’re not careful.”

“Well then, let’s go check on him.”

“You said you needed to go home. Isn’t that why I’m taking the train back to Cardiff?”

“It can wait.”

Arthur couldn’t find a reason to object.

-x-x-

Merlin pulled up behind Garrett’s red Suzuki. The vehicle was easy to spot; it was the only car on the street with a bike rack mounted to the boot. Arthur went straight to the front door of the terraced house, noticing the mud-covered mountain bike chained to a post a few feet away. At least he knew the man wasn’t laying injured on the side of a mountain.

He rang the doorbell while Merlin lagged behind.

He tried knocking. “Garrett? You home?” Maybe he was too sick to answer.

“Does he live alone?” Merlin said, catching up.

“Yeah. He’s a widower. Never had any kids.”

“Oh.”

“Actually, that’s how we met. His wife was killed during a break-in.” Arthur left out the part where he saw it happen. It was a long story and he hated telling it. “Her death is what prompted him to join the police. He’d been a construction worker before that.”

He tried the door, but unsurprisingly, it was locked.

“We could always go in and take a look around.”

“The door’s locked, Merlin, and unless you can conjure up a key, I don’t particularly want to be breaking the door in.”

“Key? You still don’t quite get how this works, do you?” Merlin whispered, _“geendebyrdan ēac ābūgan"_ while turning the door handle. There was a click and the handle turned the rest of the way in Merlin’s hand as he pushed the door open.

Arthur scanned the area. Had anyone seen that? He wasn’t used to this yet. Would he ever be?

“Locks are a lot more complicated than they used to be, but getting them open isn’t really any more difficult than it was in Camelot.”

“You did this in Camelot?”

Merlin gave him a sheepish look that Arthur took to mean, ‘all the time.’

He knew that Merlin had lied about being a sorcerer; he remembered the confession. He remembered that horrible, gut-wrenching feeling of betrayal. Could remember it fading away as he realized that it wasn’t that Merlin had hidden his true self from Arthur, but that Merlin was even more of what Arthur had always known the man to be. Brave, loyal, stupidly selfless.

Still, he hadn’t thought Merlin would have had a need for this sort of subterfuge within the walls of their own home. Maybe there was more to learn than a simple recovery of his old memories could provide.

Arthur followed Merlin through the doorway and into a cluttered living room. There were souvenirs and framed photographs everywhere—pictures of his skydiving trip last fall, a mountain climbing expedition from Switzerland, and scuba diving from a vacation in the Virgin Islands. The American Virgin Islands no less, because somehow Garrett thought they would be more exotic than the British Virgin Islands.

There was also a fair number of pictures of young kids—Garrett’s niece and nephews—and a single picture of an older couple, who Arthur assumed were his parents. Conspicuously absent were any pictures of his late wife.

“Garrett?”

There was no sign of him in either bedroom, the door to the toilet was wide open, showing the room to be devoid of life. The kitchen was equally empty.

“Well this was a waste of time,” Arthur said.

“What do you want to do now?”

“I’ll have someone at work call his sister and parents—see if they know where he is. There’s little else we can do unless there is a sign of foul play. He’s a healthy adult and if he wants to get himself sacked for skipping work, that’s his own decision.”

“Is he seeing anyone? If he has a girlfriend or something, you should call her too.”

“He’d been married for 20 years when his wife died. He hasn’t expressed an interest in anyone new since. Not that I’m aware of. For some people, it takes a long time to recover from that sort of thing.”

“Some people never do.”

Was Merlin talking about himself? A cold lump formed in the pit of Arthur’s stomach, but why should he feel guilty? It wasn’t as if he’d got himself killed on purpose.

Merlin cleared his throat. “I mean… My mother, she never married. Even after we knew for sure that my father was dead. Even after she didn’t have the excuse of taking care of me, keeping my magic secret. She just…never wanted anyone else.”

Arthur couldn’t dredge up any details about Merlin’s father, but maybe he shouldn’t be surprised by that. He was always fatherless in the stories. A bastard, he was called. Illegitimate. What horrible terms. As though Merlin were flawed somehow because his father hadn’t been around when he grew up.

They left the house, relocking the door on their way out. A glimpse of blue and black in the backseat of Garrett’s car caught his eye as he walked past. Arthur stopped to get a better look. There was no mistaking the mass of navy canvas as anything but a shooting jacket, not with the cinching buckles and the strategically located patches of texturized rubber. It lay to partially obscure a black case that was just as obviously Garrett’s match rifle. Now that he was paying more attention, he noticed the door nearest to him wasn’t even closed all the way.

“Merlin, come look at this.”

“What am I looking at?”

“Garrett was getting ready to go to the shooting range after all.”

“You said he never made it.”

“I know.”

Merlin looked like he was thinking through the same possibilities that were going through Arthur’s head. None of them were good.

“Does this count as a sign of foul play?” Merlin pointed to the ground where several small patches of a dark liquid had dried onto the pavement. “It looks like blood.”

Arthur followed the drops into the middle of the street. “They get bigger going this way, then they just stop.”

“You think a car was there waiting for him? If he got in without bothering to even shut his car door when he had a gun inside…”

“Maybe we’re overreacting. He could have injured himself, had a neighbour drive him to hospital. We don’t even know for sure that this is blood.”

“There’s only one way I know of to find out.”

“Right. I’ll call in the forensics team.”

“No. I meant… Do you have a bottle— Oh, nevermind, I have everything we need.” And with that Merlin retrieved a half full bottle of water and a pen from his car. He pulled the cap off the pen and used the narrow end to scrape at one of the spots of probable blood.

“Merlin! You’re destroying evidence!”

Merlin scoffed. “There’s other drops here for your police friends. I’m not stupid.”

“That’s debatable.”

Merlin glared at him before putting a few drops of water onto the spot and mixing it.

Arthur’s eyes widened as Merlin whispered a spell and the liquid pulled itself off the ground, floated through the air and into the cap of the water bottle. This was definitely worse than the door lock. Anyone passing by could have seen.

Merlin gave the liquid a sniff, but didn’t pronounce a judgment.

It was the right colour to be blood. That was obvious now that the substance was in a white cap instead of on tarmac.

Merlin whispered another spell, then extended the cap to Arthur.

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Drink it.”

“I’m not drinking that! You’re only doing this because you agree it’s probably blood.”

Merlin gave him one of those looks. “I know, but whatever it was, it’s not blood anymore. I promise it won’t hurt you.”

“If you’re so sure, why don’t _you_ drink it?”

“I would, but I’ve already done all the work around here. I think it’s time for you to pull your weight.”

Arthur’s brow crinkled. He was _not_ useless! He’d rather Merlin call him arrogant or spoilt. Even being called fat would be preferable.

He took the cap and downed the contents then blinked in surprise. He’d been expecting the metallic taste of blood, but instead… “It tastes like wine.”

“Ah! Excellent!” Merlin beamed at him. “Or well, not so excellent for Garrett seeing as this is likely _his_ blood on the ground.”

“You turned blood into wine.”

“It’s called magic, Arthur. Keep up.”

“ _Blood_ into _wine_ , Merlin.”

Merlin sighed, “Okay, most transmutations are extremely difficult if not outright impossible. The blood to wine trick is really pretty easy though, so there’s no need to be impressed. It’d be like me being surprised that you could swing a mace without hitting yourself in the head. Hardly worthy of praise.”

Except that Arthur wasn’t sure he _could_ swing a mace without injuring himself. He _thought_ he could, but there wasn’t a way to know for certain. He couldn’t just saunter down to his armory and pick one up for a little practice, now could he? Merlin expected him to be his old self. He wanted to be that man, but how could he do that if he couldn’t even remember his wife’s face, or the name of the man who taught him to hold a sword, or why it was that Merlin felt so damn important to him.

“You can call in your people now.”

“They aren’t ‘my people.’”

“No?”

“I’m just a sergeant, a nobody.”

“You have never been a nobody Arthur. You’re incapable of it.”

It didn’t make Arthur feel any better, but he ignored that. He had more important things to worry about at the moment.

-x-x-

It took 10 minutes for the first police car to arrive. Unsurprisingly, the man to step out of the vehicle was Robert. Arthur explained the situation to him and, as they waited for the forensics team to show up and tell them what Merlin and Arthur already knew, he made the requisite introductions.

“Robert and I were hired the same week, so we’ve ended up working together quite a bit. Just don’t call him Rob, or Bob, or Bert. He hates that.”

“You don’t like nicknames?”

Arthur chuckled. “It’s all a part of his ‘theory.’”

“It works! I don’t know why you’re so skeptical. I bet you didn’t even read that email I sent out about the gala.”

Arthur knew which one he meant. Robert had sent it while Merlin was in hospital. He didn’t bother explaining and merely shook his head.

“You should have read it! Heck, you should be organizing the damn thing with me.”

“And why is that?”

“For the recognition, of course. You have to be visible if you want a promotion.”

“I haven’t been sergeant long enough for a promotion to inspector.”

“This is what I keep trying to tell you, Craddock! It’s not about experience. It’s about perception. If you go about like you deserve a promotion—confident—people will believe you.”

“That, or they’ll think I’m a giant prat.”

Judging by his grin, Merlin thought that was particularly clever.

“No harm there then,” Merlin said. “If they didn’t know you were a prat already, they’d have learned eventually anyway.”

Robert gave Merlin’s poor attempt at a joke his standard I-can’t-believe-I’m-getting-away-with-this laugh where he crinkles up his nose and lets out a small nasal snicker. It was usually reserved for inside jokes and those times when he’d pulled the wool over someone’s eyes.

Merlin let out a choked laugh in response. He tried to keep it in check, but his efforts only managed to make him sound a bit mad. It really wasn’t that funny. Actually, it wasn’t funny at all!

“ _What_ is _wrong_ with you?”

At that, Merlin’s restraint crumbled and the fit overtook him.

Arthur felt the need to make excuses for the alarming behavior. The best he could come up with was, “Sorry, he was hit on the head recently. Concussions have odd side effects sometimes.”

Robert looked only marginally reassured.

At length, Merlin calmed, took a large, deep breath to steady himself and clutched his face. “My cheeks hurt.” He worked his jaw a few times to stretch the muscles. “And it’s nothing to do with my head. I’m fine, I _told_ you. It’s just that Robert here suddenly reminded me of someone.”

Merlin eyed him. It was just for a second, but it was enough to set Arthur on alert.

“Do I know this person too?”

“Yes. He did you a really big favor back home.” To Robert, Merlin said, “This was a long time ago. We were just kids, really.”

And suddenly, Arthur realized they had a secret code without ever discussing it, where nothing said was untrue, but every word had a deeper meaning, one that no one on earth would even begin to suspect.

“And this other guy, I swear you remind me of him—well, not physically, you don’t have the same build. James cooked up this ridiculous scheme and we were forced to go along with it. I’d forgotten about that.”

Arthur cringed a little at Merlin’s use of his legal name, but supposing he hadn’t had the time to explain his real name to Robert, or consider if it was even wise to do so, he let it go.

“Me too it would seem.”

“Think on it. I hardly doubt you’ve forgotten completely.”

Arthur didn’t have time for that. By then, several more of his co-workers had arrived and he needed to get to work. So much for a day off to process his situation.

“I’m probably going to be tied up the rest of the day with this. You could wait around here…”

“I do have a few errands,” Merlin offered a little too quickly.

_I’m not coming with you. Not this time._

Arthur’s heart sank and he couldn’t be certain if that was because of the memory or the present. He swallowed the feeling down as best he could.

“I’ll hitch a ride back to Central with Robert. Meet me there when you’re done.”

Another police car pulled up just as Merlin pulled away. It was strange watching him go.

“What’s wrong?” Robert said.

Merlin could have at least told him where he was going, how long he would be.

“It’s nothing.” He couldn’t possibly explain. He didn’t understand it himself. Even in his head, it sounded a bit too needy to say that it felt like they weren’t supposed to be apart.

Arthur spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon interviewing and re-interviewing neighbours and calling Garrett’s family—his sister, his parents. The remainder of his time he spent back at the station, filling out report after report.

When he finally finished work for the day, he went to the front of the station to find Merlin messing about on his phone, his hair now noticeably shorter than it had been that morning. With his ears now in full view, he looked even more like Arthur remembered from Camelot. He couldn’t have aged more than a few years in all this time.

“These were your important errands? Getting a haircut and having your mobile fixed?”

“How do you expect to ring me for favors at all hours of the night if I don’t have a working phone?”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Neither of these errands would have taken much time. You must have been waiting here for hours.”

“It’s okay. I’m good at waiting for you. I have a lot of practice.”

From behind him, someone said, “Hey, Craddock! We’re all going to get some dinner. You going to join us?”

He looked to Merlin. “Hungry?”

-x-x-

The Lance and Shield wasn’t the closest pub to the police station, but the few extra minutes it took to walk there ensured they wouldn’t have to put up with local university students doing their pre-drinking in preparation for a late night at one of the adjacent clubs.

Arthur ordered a pint of Strongbow to go with his open chicken pie and sat back prepared to listen to the usual chatter—weekend exploits, stories about stupid criminals encountered during the day, complaints about this, that, or the other. It never came.

It wasn’t until after their food arrived that anyone spoke.

“Garrett wouldn’t just up and leave,” Ben said, “and if he’d been injured, he’d have called.”

Cade and Owen nodded in agreement.

“I checked the hospitals myself and I’m telling you, he’s not there.” That was Paul.

If possible, the men looked even more downtrodden. Arthur wanted to say something to reassure them. He set his features into what he hoped was the picture of confidence. “He’ll be fine. We won’t give up until he’s home safe.”

Merlin looked up from his mug and Arthur cleared his throat.

“Right, well. Don’t let your food get cold.” Arthur dug into his own meal to set the example.

After that, the men regained some of their usual talkativeness. Owen lamented his status as a single man, Paul told them about his afternoon testifying in court, Cade tried to convince Ben to swap days off, and Gale put them all to shame by discussing his plans for running the upcoming Man versus Horse Marathon in Llanwrtyd Wells. Arthur sat back and listened to it all. He enjoyed moments like these.

With their waitress nowhere in sight, Arthur finished his food and said, “I’m going for another drink.” He scanned the table to see who else had an empty glass. “Owen, Ben, you want anything?”

They nodded but before he could even stand, Paul said, “You’re not going to ask Merlin?” He held up Merlin’s mug to highlight its lack of contents.

“He’s a lightweight.”

“I am not!” Merlin said in such an indignant voice that Arthur was sure he was right in his assessment. He gave Merlin a look to let him know he saw through the lie.

“Ok, maybe I am… A bit. But it’s just beer; I’m not going to get drunk from a couple of pints!

“Fine. I’ll bring you back one too.”

Merlin looked overly smug for some unfathomable reason.

There were quite a few more people in the pub now compared to when they arrived, but it was a weekday and early yet in the scheme of things; the seating at the bar was mostly open. The empty stools weren’t much of a surprise, but the man waiting to get his drinks was.

“What are you doing behind the bar, Wayne?”

Wayne was another of those people that felt familiar. He must have been someone before—one of those people reborn to live a new life with a new love like Merlin had said.

“It’s my latest career choice. It suits me, don’t you think?”

“I think with you behind the bar, the place is going to be run out of business. They’re not giving you free drinks are they?”

“Nah. I’m doing really well these days. Haven’t been drunk in weeks.”

“It’s sad that I’m actually impressed.”

“The manager said if I was going to be spending so much time here, I might as well do something productive. He’s really helped me turn my life around. It all started after you slapped me with that PND, so I have you to thank for this.”

It wasn’t every day a man thanked Arthur for giving him an £80 ticket. He couldn’t recall it ever happening before. Granted, a Penalty Notice for Disorder and a night in the local holding cells was hardly the worst that could have happened.

Wayne looked to the side. “And who’s this?”

Merlin stepped up beside Arthur. “I thought you might need help carrying the drinks.”

“This,” Arthur put his hand on Merlin’s shoulder, “is my good friend Merlin.”

“Oh, yeah. I think we’ve met before.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You sure? I swear you look familiar.”

“Merlin has one of those faces,” Arthur said. Which was completely ridiculous, what with the cheekbones and the ears and the lips and… Well, Merlin wasn’t exactly run-of-the-mill, was he?

“Maybe just in passing,” Merlin said to deflect suspicion.

“That must be it.” Wayne shrugged, seeming appeased. “Well, anyone who can tolerate Craddock’s friendship must be a decent bloke.” He extended a hand for Merlin to shake. “You can call me Wayne.”

“I take it that’s not your real name then.”

“Nope. My parents named me Eric, but that doesn’t suit me at all.”

They talked a few more minutes, then Wayne got their drinks, and Merlin helped lug them back to the table. Halfway there, Arthur said, “I know him, don’t I?”

“Of course you do. You just introduced me. Or have your memory problems expanded to include short term memory as well.” Merlin suppressed a chuckle. He thought he was so funny.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Think about it. He calls himself ‘Wayne.’”

“You don’t mean that he’s… Sir Gwaine!?” Arthur’s voice cracked on the last syllable.

“ _Shhhh!!_ Don’t let him hear!”

Arthur was sure Merlin’s harsh shushing drew more attention than anything he’d said.

“But he’s a gambler and a drunk!”

“Hasn’t changed much then, has he?”

Arthur nearly lost his grip on his co-workers’ drinks. His knights were supposed to have been bastions of virtue! Wayne was… well, Arthur wasn’t sure if the man even knew the meaning of the word.

“It’s good to see him doing well. He’s the reason I don’t interfere with past life memories.”

“You can do that?” Arthur said, thinking of himself and wondering why he hadn’t thought to ask if Merlin could magic up a solution to his memory problems.

“I tried. This was back in… Ok, I don’t remember. Doesn’t matter. The point is, he was having a hard time. He’d always been a drinker, but when he was first reborn, it was worse. He wasn’t getting drunk for fun. It was self-medication. I thought if he could remember why he was troubled, he’d be able to work through it. Pull himself together. I only made things worse. He ended up being hanged.”

“Hanged!? For what?”

“Murder.”

“ _Merlin!_ ”  

“But it wasn’t really! It was an accident. The man picked a fight with Gwaine and hit his head on a set of stairs when Gwaine knocked him out. They were both at fault, but Gwaine had a reputation and the man who died was the son of a powerful businessman. The trial was a complete sham.”

“That wasn’t your fault. You were just trying to help.”

“That’s what I always told myself. Every time I failed to protect someone… If I were—”

“Shut up, Merlin.” He couldn’t let Merlin beat himself up for failing to be perfect all the time. “Now come on. Everyone will wonder what’s taking so long.”

They returned to the table, distributed the drinks, and settled back into their seats.

The conversation had moved on while he’d been up at the bar and he wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about anymore—something involving a hatchet and a tyre. He didn’t ask for a recap. He was distracted by the realization that he wasn’t sure what Merlin planned to do after they left. Would he want to go home?

Arthur checked his watch. Every minute that ticked by was another reason he could use to persuade Merlin to stay at his flat tonight. It wasn’t that Arthur needed him for anything in particular, but if something did come up and Merlin wasn’t there… Just thinking about it was strangely irritating.

All too soon, Paul was saying, “I think I better head home.”

Several others mumbled their agreement.

It wasn’t late enough for everyone to leave. Even if Merlin agreed that it was too late to start a 2-hour drive, there was still one last train for Knighton.

Arthur made a few pathetic attempts to drag out the conversation, but no one played along. A few minutes later, everyone was filing out of the pub and into the crisp night air.

Arthur prepared himself for an argument and opened his mouth to begin his list of reasons why Merlin should stay at Arthur’s flat, only to be pre-empted by Merlin saying, “I can stay at yours tonight, right?” Like it was no big deal.

“Come on,” he said, hoping for an equal amount of nonchalance, “we’ll go pick up your car first.”

Partway there, Merlin said, “You’re still worried about Garrett. I can tell.”

“Men his age and status, they don’t get kidnapped. He either left on his own or he’s dead.”

“That’s not what you told everyone else.”

“I told them what they needed to hear. There’s nothing more to be done at the moment. Forensics is running the blood, but they won’t have the DNA results for a few days. It’s not like on the telly where they run the samples and get results right away. We’ve done everything we can for now. There’s no use in them worrying. It will just prevent them from getting the rest they need. And they’ll need it when we get our next clue.”

“So instead you’re planning on doing all the worrying by yourself?”

“Better one man than the whole group.”

“But you’re not alone. Not anymore.”

Arthur gave him a nod and changed the subject. “You got on well enough with the lads.”

“Of course I did. They’re your knights.”

“My what? No they’re not.”

“They are. Your modern knights. At least half of them actually _were_ knights. They’re drawn to you. Flies on honey.”

Arthur’s mind did a double take. “Did you just call me ‘honey?’”

“It was an analogy. _Obviously_ , it was a stretch.”

-x-x-

Arthur showed Merlin around his flat when they arrived and set about getting a spare pillow and blankets for the couch. He would have been willing to split the bed again, but Merlin had gravitated to the couch on his own and Arthur was too uncertain about their relationship to suggest otherwise.

He left Merlin to his own devices and took a quick shower.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Arthur toweled himself off, ran a comb through his damp hair, applied deodorant to his underarms, and wrapped the towel around his waist for the short trip to his bedroom. The moment he stepped out into the hall, he thought better of it. Merlin was likely too absorbed in whatever he was doing to have noticed that he was done with the shower.

He walked out to the living room to find Merlin hunched over his phone again, eyes darting back and forth as he read through who knows what. Presumably, it was the same thing he’d been reading at the police station.

“Merlin, the shower’s free.”

The man glanced at him, then returned to his work. “Okay. Just a minute.”

“What on earth are you reading?”

“I’m looking for those people from the hospital.”

“Having any luck?”

“The nurse isn’t in the hospital’s online staff directory. I’ll go back there tomorrow and see what I can learn.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“They know who I am and suspect who you are. I’m not going to sit around and wait for them to find us.”

“It might take a while for you to track these people down.”

“It might.”

Arthur didn’t miss the opportunity. He tried his best to sound authoritative and said, “Then you’ll stay here while you look.”

Merlin nodded without looking up from his research. It wasn’t quite the response Arthur was looking for, but it was good enough.

Arthur was nearly to his room before realizing he’d just treated a guest in his home like a teammate in a locker room. Standing around in the living room in only a towel was hardly the best etiquette. Merlin didn’t appear to have minded though, as if he were used to seeing Arthur in such a state of undress.

There were plenty of hints to support the theory. Just that morning, Merlin had practically helped him dress. Merlin knew which side of the bed he preferred and that he hogged the covers, two things Arthur himself hadn’t even known. And that afternoon he’d had a flash of memory—Merlin standing in front of him, arms wide open for a hug.

He’d been married. He knew that.

Merlin said they’d loved each other and he didn’t doubt it, but _how_ , exactly? Guinevere had apparently had feelings for one of his knights, after all. Arthur could’ve had feelings for someone else too. Maybe they’d married for political reasons. That sort of thing happened all the time then, right? He couldn’t see himself as the type of man that would cheat on his wife, regardless of their circumstances, but he hadn’t always been married.

Last night he’d just done what came natural, and that seemed to have turned out fine. Maybe he just needed to continue doing whatever felt right instead of waiting for his memories to catch up.  

Behind him, he heard Merlin getting up from his spot on the couch and heading toward the bathroom.

He pulled an extra towel from the basket full of clothes that needed folding and walked back to Merlin. The man turned to face Arthur just as he was walking through the doorway.

“You’ll be wanting this.”

He watched carefully as Merlin’s eyes went to the towel. “Thanks.”

He stepped in closer and when Merlin accepted the towel, Arthur didn’t let go. He kept hold with his right hand and let his other slide over to Merlin’s. Arthur ghosted his fingers across the back of Merlin’s hand and over his boney wrist, then smoothed his palm along Merlin’s forearm, rounded the bend of his sharp elbow, and continued up until his hand rested on the solid muscle of Merlin’s tricep, his hand hidden beneath the edge of Merlin’s shirtsleeve. Arthur glanced down. It felt strange to see the skin above Merlin’s elbow. He’d always worn long sleeves before. They both had.

Merlin dropped his hands to his sides, giving Arthur the access he needed to slide his body into Merlin’s personal space.

Arthur finally let go of the towel and moved his freed hand to the side of Merlin’s neck, fingertips settling near the spine. He pulled his thumb back along Merlin’s jawbone. The motion encouraged the man to tip his head back and expose the pale length of his throat.

Merlin swallowed audibly, his Adam’s apple moving slowly down and then back up. Arthur leaned in, lips brushing the skin of Merlin’s neck.

Merlin let out a breathy, “Arthur,” and Arthur could feel the vibration of Merlin’s vocal cords on his lips.

“Arthur, what are you doing?”

Arthur’s brain wasn’t quite working right; he didn’t catch the wariness in Merlin’s tone.

He pulled away just enough for Merlin to tip his head back down so they were eye to eye. Arthur knew those eyes. He must have spent hours staring at them back in Camelot.

Merlin’s gaze flickered down and Arthur realized that despite his earlier self-admonishment, he was still only wearing a bath towel. He hadn’t meant to be quite so forward, but he was committed now.

“I knew you could be stupid Merlin, but I thought you’d at least know what this is.”

“No, of course, I know… I meant, _why_ are you doing it?”

Arthur let out a soft chuckle, because really, wasn’t that just as obvious? He ignored Merlin’s attempt to ruin the mood and leaned in just shy of touching. He paused there, let himself feel Merlin’s hot breath on his lips because the anticipation was half the thrill.

He whispered, “You’re acting like I’ve never kissed you before.”

Merlin’s hand brushed against Arthur’s hip. It might have even settled there, but Merlin said, “That’s because you haven’t,” and Arthur stepped back as surely as if the touch had been a push.

“What do you mean, I haven’t?” That couldn’t be right.

“There’s nothing to explain, Arthur. You’ve never… We’ve never… Not even remotely.”

 _They’d never even kissed?_ His mind reeled. He had to rethink everything. He kept coming back to the feel of Merlin’s fingers on his face, his hand over Arthur’s heart, their foreheads together. Tears on his skin.

Did Merlin look disappointed? No, Arthur was just imagining that, projecting.

“You do remember the part where you were married, right? To Gwen.”

“Well I know that, but… You know all these intimate details about me.” He listed off a few of the best examples.

“And from that, you assumed we were… You rarely conceded any physical displays of affection. For years a pat on the shoulder was about as far as you would go.”

“You used to ask me for hugs.”

“Sure. It freaked you out, too. That was half the fun to be honest.”

Then Merlin said, “I was your servant.”

“My what?”

“Your personal manservant. _That’s_ how I know all those things about you. I woke you every day, brought your meals, helped you dress, kept your schedule, cleaned up after you, and did whatever else you told me to do. Usually that meant washing your clothes—even though there were laundresses for that—and mucking out your stables—though the stable hands could have managed perfectly well on their own.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. I guess I just assumed you knew. It is rather basic.”

“I thought you were one of my advisors.”

“A man of humble station can’t also be wise?”

“But you’re a sorcerer.”

“And only alive because I hid that little fact as best I could.” Merlin took a deep breath. “You’re confused right now. That’s okay. You don’t have to push yourself into doing something just because you think you’re supposed to. Just do what comes naturally.”

That’s what he had been doing…right? But what if he was… overthinking? Being influenced without realizing it. Merlin knew everything about him. Shouldn’t he trust the man’s assessment? Then again, Arthur had a history of refusing to see what was right before his eyes—his father’s failings, Morgana’s betrayal, Merlin’s magic, and more recently, _my name is Arthur Pendragon._ And if he could hide something from himself—something private—maybe he could have hidden it from Merlin too.


	8. Ruin

Merlin groaned as the ringing of his mobile roused him from sleep. It should be against the law to phone this late at night.  It couldn’t be his alarm. He’d only just closed his eyes. Maybe if he ignored it…

No. It was no good. He would never get back to sleep like this. The noise refused to let up.

He reached for his phone but found the blanket Arthur had lent him twined around his limbs like rope.  Struggling to disentangle himself, he caught an arm on the side of the couch, shifted his weight too far in the wrong direction, and crashed to the floor with a thud.

“Ugh!” He lay still for a moment, glad that it was the middle of the night so that Arthur wouldn’t be up to witness his clumsiness.

Now that he was on a solid surface, he could finally free himself from the blanket and retrieve his phone. Merlin frowned at the screen. He’d been wrong. The ringing was his wake up alarm after all. And not only that, but it was already half six. The damn thing had been chiming away for the better part of half an hour and he’d somehow managed to sleep through it. He pushed the oddity out of his mind. He had more important things to deal with than a little fatigue. He pulled himself off the floor and plodded down to Arthur’s bedroom where the thrumming of that strange, vaguely familiar magic sounded all the more prominent in the quiet calm of the morning. 

Arthur sprawled across his bed, blankets pushed down to expose his bare chest. Merlin shivered—not from cold—and ran a finger across the spot where Arthur’s lips had brushed his skin the night before. He could still feel the touch—warm and soft, but not hesitant. He closed his eyes. He shouldn’t be indulging in the memory like this. It wasn’t healthy. Last night didn’t mean what Merlin wanted it to mean.

As eager as he was to accept any affection Arthur was willing to give, Merlin couldn’t let things get carried away again, couldn’t let Arthur do something he would only regret in a few days or weeks when he inevitably remembered Gwen, when he remembered what his relationship with Merlin had really been like.

He opened his eyes, dropped his hand to his side. There was no point in dwelling on something that would never be. As long as Arthur was happy and safe, Merlin had everything he needed. Protecting Arthur, it was the reason he was alive, the reason he’d been born, and right now the best thing he could do to keep Arthur safe was to find out who those two were from the hospital.

-x-x-

As he woke, Arthur first noticed that he was hungry.  He managed a groggy, “Merrrlin,” and threw an arm over his eyes. His manservant would no doubt fling the curtains wide open first thing upon his arrival. Probably open the windows too and let a cold breeze speed Arthur along in waking. He wasn’t ready for that. His stomach growled.  Breakfast though, that he could handle.

“Merlin.”

Why wasn’t he here yet? Arthur shouldn’t be surprised. Merlin made a habit of being late. That didn’t stop Arthur from being disappointed _every single time_. Arthur was supposed to be Merlin’s primary concern, not recovering from a trip to the tavern or helping some random wash maid with her chores or whatever nonsense it was that he was up to this morning.   

If Gaius had him out running silly errands—collecting rare herbs that only bloom at sunrise or something equally ridiculous—they would have to have a discussion about Merlin’s duties. No, that wouldn’t do.  Gaius was an old man; he needed Merlin’s help.  There would come a day when he’d be unable to continue as court physician.  Merlin was already quite proficient, maybe even skilled enough to take over at any time.  Obviously he lacked the same level of experience, but Arthur couldn’t imagine finding someone he trusted so well as Merlin to look out for the health of the court. 

When that day came, where would that leave Arthur?  One man couldn’t be both the court physician and the personal servant to the king.  He’d be stuck with _George_.  Not only would he be bored to tears, but he probably wouldn’t even see Merlin most days.  They would both be too busy.

Arthur was well spoiled by the current situation. No other arrangement would allow them so much time together. He didn’t even see his wife as much as he saw his manservant.

It wasn’t particularly fair to Merlin, but Arthur didn’t want to see him moving on to more prestigious roles.  The whole mess was irritating.

“Merlin!”

Where was he?  Didn’t he realize that days like this were in short supply?

“ _MERLIN!_ ”

He started to think of alternatives. Excuses, really, for delaying the transition. The first thing that came to mind was that Merlin hadn’t been able to heal him when Mord—

But wait, Gaius hadn’t been able to help with that either. That had been a mortal wound. He’d made one last journey... He… he hadn’t made it! No wonder Merlin wasn’t here. Arthur wasn’t asleep; he was _dead!_

His eyes burst open and he bolted up in bed. Chest heaving, Arthur took in the quiet of his small bedroom. He was in his flat, where he belonged.  Not in his chambers in Camelot. Not in the spirit world.

What the hell was wrong with him? This wasn’t like the memory fragments he’d recovered over the last few days. It wasn’t a memory at all. He’d been confused, completely lost in his old life. Arthur shook his head. He hadn’t been fully awake, that’s all. It was nothing to worry about.

He pushed his blankets aside and stomped out to the living room in search of his former manservant. He really had been calling Merlin’s name, so why hadn’t he answered?

Merlin’s blanket and pillow had been tossed carelessly on the couch, but there was no man in sight.  Arthur checked the rest of the flat, his irritation rising with each empty room.

Merlin wasn’t his servant anymore. He wasn’t required to do anything for Arthur and he certainly didn’t need Arthur’s approval to come and go as he pleased, but yesterday, he’d woken Arthur and cooked him breakfast. Why was today any different? He sighed and ran a hand down his face. This was his fault. He’d made Merlin uncomfortable with that near kiss last night, now the man was avoiding him.

Arthur went back to his bedroom and retrieved his mobile from the bedside table, prepared to dial Merlin’s number and apologize if necessary. Not for wanting to kiss him—despite Merlin’s assertions, Arthur wasn’t sure he’d ever feel sorry for that—but he _was_ sorry if his actions had upset Merlin in any way.   

There was a string of texts waiting for him, all with a timestamp from an hour ago.

          Heading back to hospital now to find that nurse  
          Texting b/c I thought you would rather sleep a bit longer

 Arthur scoffed. With how his morning had unfolded so far, he would have much preferred Merlin waking him early. He continued reading.

          Let me know if you learn anything more about Garrett

          I’ll be back before you’re off work  
          I’ll make us dinner

 Feeling mollified that Merlin wasn’t quite so unsettled as he’d imagined, Arthur set his mobile back down and readied himself for a day at work.

 -x-x-

Merlin walked through the main hospital entrance, his usual disguise in place with a few significant modifications.  These weren’t changes he was happy about having to make, but at least modern fashion didn’t require him to wear a dress. It was too risky to go about as an old man around people who knew who he really was.  An old woman though—who would guess?

He was on his way through the main lobby when the elderly man seated behind the main information desk said, “Can I help you ma’am?”

Merlin paused. He’d been planning on taking the lift to the fourth floor and searching for the nurse there, but he might have better luck at finding her without her noticing if he had the help of an unwitting hospital employee.

“Could you help me locate a nurse named Fiona?” Merlin said. “She took such good care of my husband when he was sick. I’d love to be able to thank her personally.”

The man smiled at Merlin knowingly.  “That’s very sweet of you.” His eyes trailed across Merlin’s features. “Shame you’re already married.”

Merlin nearly snorted with laughter and cleared his throat to cover the sound. He wasn’t used to that sort of attention, though perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised at anything—not after Arthur’s misunderstanding last night.

The man seemed to lose his nerve at Merlin’s response and turned to his computer. The painfully slow click of the keyboard keys suggested that the man used only one finger to type.

“Ah. We have two employees by that— Wait… no. This one’s a doctor. You said…” He cleared his throat. “Here it is. Fiona Smith. Says here she was reassigned to maternity for the day. We must have been short staffed. I could, uh, page her for you?”

“No need.” The higher pitch of his voice ground on Merlin’s ears but he soldiered on. “If it’s all right, I’ll head over that way.  I don’t want to trouble her and I would love to see all the newborns.” He hoped the extra bit of false enthusiasm didn’t show through.  He didn’t dislike babies, but whenever he was around them, it was hard to forget that in another 80 or so years, they would all be dead and he would still be here, unchanged.

The man behind the desk forced a smile and directed him toward the corridor to the right.

A tall nurse with a deep purple bruise and swelling around his left eye walked past and Merlin suppressed the urge to duck his head. Without his disguise, the man would have definitely remembered him. It’s hard to forget the face of the person who gave you a black eye. If only Arthur had been allowed to stay with him when they first arrived at the hospital the other day, everything would have been fine, but after they were separated, he’d gone wild with the knowledge that Arthur was nearby and that the men and women around him were keeping them apart. After the long, long wait, he hadn't been willling to accept that without a fight. He’d flailed randomly to avoid their restraining hands until they forced a sedative on him.

When Merlin reached the maternity unit, he gave the woman at the nurse’s station the same story he’d given the man at the main desk. 

“What a shame! You just missed her.  We thought she was going to help us out today, but she quit instead! No notice or anything. Said she had a family emergency that wasn’t going to allow her to work.”

Merlin clenched his jaw. If he hadn’t slept in, he might have caught her. He tried to keep his tone neutral and hoped any frustration that seeped through was read merely as disappointment. “Did she leave a forwarding address? Maybe I’ll just write her a thank you note instead.”

“I’m sure she did—for her last pay cheque. Now, we’re not supposed to give out this kind of information to anyone…” Merlin gave her his best crestfallen look and tried to appear even more frail than he knew he already did. The nurse looked him up and down. “But I’m sure you’re harmless.”

She rifled through a thick folder then jotted down the address and wished him luck. “Just don’t do anything with that to get me sacked,” she joked.

Merlin didn’t make any promises, but gave her a friendly smile and a wave as he turned to leave. Her note listed an address for a PO box here in Cardiff. He would head over to the nearest delivery office and see if he could find the right box number. Then it would just be a matter of waiting.

Outside the nursery, a woman stood hunched over, staring through the glass at the newborns. Merlin would have kept right on walking—the exit was just ahead—but the woman said, “My baby girl should be in there.”

Merlin stopped and turned back to get his first good look at the woman and her red rimmed eyes, disheveled hair, deep frown.

She continued unprompted, “She’s in intensive care.  Didn’t start breathing on her own when she was born. Then her heart stopped. The doctors got it started again, but something is still wrong. No one can tell me what.  It’s like she just doesn’t care if she lives or not.”

“I’m sorry.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “Will you help? The gods don’t listen to me anymore, but you have the Bright One’s favour.”

Merlin’s eyebrows shot up. _The Bright One?_ That was the translation modern scholars used for—

He took in a sudden breath as the realization struck. That vaguely familiar magic that coursed through Arthur, Merlin knew where he’d felt it before. He didn’t know about being favoured; he’d only dealt with the White Goddess a few times—generally liked to stay out of the way of all the gods and goddesses—but she had granted him assistance each time he’d asked. And now she’d brought Arthur back to him. Maybe he really was favoured.

“Please?”

The world was changing. No one had recognized him in centuries and now it had happened twice in as many days. He could try to deny it, but this woman _knew_.

Protecting Arthur took precedence over everything else, but Merlin knew how to recognize the sound of true heartache in a person’s voice. This wasn’t a trap. As long as she didn’t know about Arthur as well…

“I’ll see what I can do.”

-x-x-

Arthur finished reading through the blood typing report from Garrett’s and passed it on to Robert. 

“It’s a match, isn’t it?” Robert said, as he rearranged the potted plants he kept at his desk. The vines sprawled across his desktop leaving little room for paperwork. The man could grow practically anything. Arthur had tried several times to keep a houseplant. He’d killed them all.

Arthur nodded. “B positive.” That didn’t mean it was Garrett’s blood, but with only 10% of the population falling into the B group, chances weren’t good that it belonged to someone else. “What about the phone records?”

“They should be coming in soon, but listen. The word is, we’re not going to be on this case much longer. We’re—” 

“Craddock!” Chief Inspector Newey barked. “My office. Now.”

Robert gave him a helpless sort of shrug and Arthur followed his boss without a hint of what their private meeting was to be about.

Banker’s boxes and haphazard stacks of paper cluttered the chief’s small office. Framed newspaper clippings of the cases he’d solved decorated the walls.

“Shut the door.”

That was never a good sign.

Arthur’s boss seated himself behind his desk, but Arthur remained standing. A box of files currently occupied the visitor’s chair.

Arthur put his hands behind his back and kept his chin up, shoulders back. He prepared himself for anything but assumed he was about to be chastised for calling off work when he was well enough to drive across town checking on others.

“What’s this I hear about you being in a traffic accident over the weekend?”

The gears in Arthur’s head changed direction. ~~~~

“Word gets around fast here. Constable Watchman in Traffic wants a word with you about the matter.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll head over there first thing.”

“Good. You talk to him, then go straight home.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. You were tight lipped about your reason for wanting that personal day yesterday, but it was obviously because of the accident and I can see why you asked.”

“But Garrett’s still missing and I feel fine.” Physically, at least, that was true.

“I’ve never liked you much Craddock.” This wasn’t news to Arthur. Chief Inspector Newey never made a secret of his opinions, but he was never unfair either and Arthur respected him for that. “Half the people around here cater to you like you own the place, but you’re a good cop, a good investigator, and you have a way with the rest of the group. They do better when you’re around.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’m not telling you this to stroke your ego. I’m telling you because if I believed you were up to it, you’d work overtime today. But I saw you yesterday and it’s the same this morning—staring off into space like you’re half asleep, even when people are talking to you. And so you’re going to answer Watchman’s questions and I’m not going to see a hint of you until tomorrow. We have others to fill in for you in the meantime. You’re not irreplaceable, you know. No one is that special.”

                _Without you, Camelot is nothing._

_There’ll never be another like you, Arthur._

“See? You’re doing it again right now. Pull yourself together and get some rest for goodness sake!”

Arthur walked out of his meeting a little stunned. He needed to be here, needed to help Garrett.

He stopped back at Robert’s desk to explain the situation.

“Maybe he’s right, James. You have been a little off this past day or so and I’ve got nothing but the phone records to go over for now. I’ll send you an update if I learn anything new.”

Arthur took the stairs up to the second floor and after a short wait, he was sitting in a conference room with Constable Andrew Watchman.

“I just wanted to hear what happened in your words,” Watchman said, “for the record. I’ve got my report nearly complete, but there are a few abnormalities that I’m hoping you can clear up.”

“Was the cause of the incident suspicious?”

“What? Oh, uh, no. Not if you consider that the vehicle hasn’t been in for its annual MOT test for the last 10 years. It’s been rusting away in a contractor’s storage yard that whole time. Just sold last week. The new owner claims he was on his way to a test site, but my guess is that he’s been driving it illegally since the purchase.”

“What do you need from me then? I didn’t see much myself. A friend of mine pushed me out of the way.”

“That’s the tricky bit. Look here.” Watchman grabbed his mobile off the table, tapped the screen a few times and said, “Yeah. Here it is.” He turned the screen toward Arthur. “Now don’t think more of this than there really is.”

Arthur squinted. A pretty brunette waved at the camera in the foreground. Out of focus in the background was Merlin with his arms stretched out, Arthur a couple feet away leaning backward. It must have been just after the push, when Arthur was still upright but on his way to his back in the middle of the street.

“What am I supposed to be looking at here?”

“Sorry to waste your time on this. I know it’s silly, but the man who gave me this photo thinks that your friend here,” Watchman pointed at Merlin, “looks like he was too far away to actually have pushed you.”

Arthur frowned and angled his head. It was too blurry to see for sure, but it looked like the man who’d taken the picture was right. Thinking back, it made sense. Merlin must have used magic to push him out of the way. He couldn’t let on. While magic wasn’t illegal anymore, its use during a crime or accident was supposed to be noted in the reports for the sake of completeness. He plastered what he hoped was a stupefied look on his face.

“I know the picture isn’t very good, but… Well, I can tell you I was definitely pushed out of the way. I’m still sore from where his hands hit me.” Arthur rubbed a hand across his chest as if to soothe sore muscles.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I just had to ask. You know how it is.”

 “Sure. Not a problem.”

Arthur left the conference room wondering if it would be better or worse for that photo to disappear. If he found a way to delete it and someone realized it was gone, it would be suspicious. If he left it, there was a possibility it wouldn’t just stay in their archive. No reputable journalist would write a story based on such a bad photo, but this was the kind of thing the tabloids lived for. Merlin couldn’t have a photo like that out in public. That pair that had chased them from the hospital would be the least of their worries.

It had only been a few days and already Arthur was lying to his coworkers. And not about minor personal things, about actual work related issues. He wasn’t all that good at lying. He hated that Merlin had done this sort of thing to him, but now he was on the inside and as much as he didn’t like the lies, he was left with little choice.

Arthur stepped out of the police station and turned right, ready to head home, then thought better of it. He may not be allowed to work on Garrett’s case today but he had no intention of sitting at home alone, wasting the day away. He needed to get his head sorted while he had the time. He couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes like last night, couldn’t afford to continue blanking out at work. He needed his memories back—all of them. He changed course and walked to the railway station instead.

-x-x-

“I can’t make any guarantees,” Merlin said, trying to ward off an unjustified swelling of hope. He knew only too well that some cases were beyond all healing.

“I’m Margo.” The woman held out her hand for Merlin to shake and as he stepped forward, his eye caught on the silver bracelet wrapped around her wrist. It was a simple ornament, a single piece of metal, no wider than his thumb, pounded roughly into shape, and yet it hummed with magic. Before releasing her hand, he tilted it slightly to get a better look.

“Do you like it? I would have never even noticed you the other day without it.”

Merlin kept his face passive. It took effort. He was always careful in public. How were all these people figuring out who he was?  

The woman had a serene smile, but somehow, it only set Merlin further on edge.

“I was in A&E with false labor, and I could feel you trying to reign in your magic. I imagine you weren’t keen on healing too quickly with all those doctors and nurses watching you. You look different now, but your magic feels the same. I’ve never felt anyone so strong. And when I saw you, I recognized you from my old dreams. It’s not hard to put the pieces together—you are Emrys. Is that what I should call you? Or do you prefer ‘Merlin?’”

So she remembered something of her previous lives. That was rare, though not completely unheard of, especially for someone with at least a little magic.

“Who are you _really_?” Merlin said.

“Someone willing to leave the past where it belongs.”

Merlin studied her. She looked grim, determined. “Is that conditional on me helping you?”

“I will give you this,” she held up her hand, fingers toward the floor to accentuate the bracelet, “if you do.”

“You think I need your trinket?”

“It’s all I have for payment.”

“I’m not asking for a price.”

“Then you’ll have to consider it a gift of thanks if you follow through.”

Nothing about this scenario set well with Merlin. She wouldn’t say who she was, which meant they’d been on poor terms in the past and she’d been in A&E at the same time he was, meaning there was a chance she’d noticed Arthur too. It seemed wise to stay on her good side.

He reminded himself that people can change, that he’d seen it with his own eyes, had seen the man who had once been Uther as a loving husband and doting father. And besides, what kind of person would he be if he refused to help an innocent newborn?

“I said I would take a look. I never promised I would be able to help.”

“If you’ll show me your true self, I can tell the nurses you’re the father and they’ll let you in without question.”

“You’ll tell them I’m the great-grandmother.”

She frowned then pointed down the corridor. “It’s this way to the NICU.”

The attending nurse led them back to the proper room, instructed Merlin on how to wash his hands before touching the newborn, and excused herself when she was satisfied that they were sufficiently clean.

There were six babies in the room, all with their own arsenal of medical equipment. Margo stood at the incubator nearest the door. A whiteboard on the back wall gave the girl’s name as Regan.

“How many weeks premature is she?” The baby was tiny. At a guess, maybe 30 weeks gestation.

“She was only a few days early. I told you, she doesn’t care to live. Sometime in my second trimester, her growth stumbled to a crawl. She doesn’t even weigh three pounds.”

Merlin reached through the opening in the side of the incubator, avoided all the wires and tubes strapped to the baby’s tiny body, intending to press his index finger to her palm, then wrenched his hand back before he could even touch her.

“What did you do to her?!” It was like nothing he’d ever seen before. He felt like he was going to throw up.

“You’re blaming me for this?”

“There’s some sort of magic here. It’s _repulsive_.” He meant that in both senses of the word. “It’s no wonder she’s unwell.”

“It isn’t as though I poisoned her!”

It seemed a strange thing to say and Merlin’s mind jumped to the only person he could remember ever poisoning. Morgana… In all these years, he’s never seen her again. Uther, Mordred, Nimueh, he’d seen each of them several times, but never Morgana.

“You were the one who cast the spell?” He knew he sounded skeptical. She may have magic, but she wasn’t powerful enough for this.

“I had help. I thought for sure he was the most powerful sorcerer alive until I saw you.”

Merlin felt nervous about it, but he had to ask. “And what were you intending for the spell to do?”

Margo lifted her chin, refusing to admit that what she’d done was wrong. “It was just a small thing to entice the rebirth of someone I care for deeply. I wanted us to be a family again.”

Merlin would have laughed if it weren’t so sad. “You tried to _force_ the reincarnation of a specific person?” People with magic today wanted things their way regardless of how it might disrupt the natural balance, but they didn’t usually have enough strength to get into any real trouble.

“It was just a little encouragement.”

“This,” Merlin pointed to the incubator, “is not ‘encouragement.’ You’ve prevented the natural emergence of your daughter’s spirit—literally repelling it away with this _little_ spell of yours—and you wonder that she has no will.”

Merlin knew just about all the spells there were for such things. He’d had plenty of reason to be interested and more than enough time to do the research. Success rates were incredibly low, and the risks were high, but she said _encouragement_ , so he thought he knew which spell she meant. It was _supposed_ to be used when a person was dying. You could provide a suitable vessel for their spirit with a newly pregnant woman and instead of crossing the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead, the spirit would bond to the body of the growing baby. The spell acted like a magnet, attracting one particular spirit and repelling all others.

“Maybe we should break the spell,” Margo said.

“It won’t help. It’s too late for the process to occur naturally.”

“So what do we do?”

Merlin shook his head. “You would have to cross the barrier between worlds yourself and retrieve the one spirit this spell was meant to attract, bring them back into the mortal realm, but that’s all but impossible now. The barrier between the worlds is stronger than it’s ever been and we’re coming up on Beltane, which just makes things worse. I’m not even sure it would work at Samhain when the barrier is weakest.”

“Then what should I do? Just let her die? She can’t wait until Samhain.”

Merlin considered. There was the Horn of Cathbhadh. That would be the safest way. He even knew where it was. He wasn’t going to tell her about it though. She’d want to try now and that wouldn’t work. With as strong as the veil had grown in recent centuries, she was going to have to wait at least a few months for the barrier to weaken to be able to open a gateway. After that, she would still need a way to control the spirit so it didn’t end up roaming the mortal world as a ghost. It seemed insane when he laid it all out in his head.

He wasn’t even sure he should let Margo try, but he was afraid of what she might do if left to her own devices. There was, after all, always the human sacrifice method to tear the veil.  For obvious reasons, Merlin wasn’t going to mention that. The problem was that he was afraid she might already know of it. With all the little clues he’d gathered, he hoped he was wrong in believing that Margo had in fact been Morgause and that the person she wanted to reunite with so badly was none other than Morgana.

“I’ll do some research for you,” he said, if for no other reason than to buy himself some time to think, “but any risks that need to be taken will be yours to bear.”

“I understand.”

He needed to tell Arthur about this, but it wasn’t an emergency. Regan certainly wasn’t going anywhere. He could wait until Arthur’s lunchbreak to phone him. In the meantime, Merlin had a PO Box he needed to track down.

-x-x-

Shortly before lunch, Arthur stood outside the two-story sandstone museum that he hoped would provide him with the answers he was looking for. Spending time around Merlin seemed to help, but he couldn’t rely on one man for a lifetime of memories and this building housed the largest display of artefacts from his reign in all of Britain. Technically, it was the Magical Heritage and History Museum, but everyone called it the Purge Museum instead. The discrepancy was probably the result of being forced to come here as a student, watch a video with the dramatized reenactment of the execution of a druid boy by drowning—as if reading about it in the history books wasn’t enough. He’d hated this place when he was a kid. He never thought he’d come back.

Three buses lined the far side of the car park and a pair of police cars sat along the kerb near the entrance.

“What’s going on?” Arthur asked the ticket attendant. “I noticed the police cars out front.”

“I’m not allowed to say anything to the public at this point,” the attendant said without looking up from the novel she was reading.

He wasn’t on duty. This wasn’t even his jurisdiction. He needed to focus on personal matters. He stamped down his curiosity and paid for his ticket.

A group of children waited impatiently along a wall lined with photographs as their chaperone attempted to herd the rest of their group out of the gift shop.

“Look! I’m Mordred!” said a blonde haired boy, his face still round with baby fat. He showed the rest of his group the back of his hand where he’d put a temporary tattoo that looked like a druid marking.

“Mordred was a bad guy!” another kid said. “He killed King Arthur!”

“No, he didn’t, you div. He was one of Arthur’s knights. Morgana killed Arthur.”

Arthur ignored the displays in the main gallery hall and headed straight to the entrance for the Purge exhibit. This section of the museum was organized chronologically and he was going to have to get through this area to get to the exhibits about his old life. He forced himself to stop and read the first plaque.

Although magic has been on the decline for the last few centuries, at the beginning of the current era, magic was in great abundance. As knowledge of sorcery grew, so did the number of people who abused their power for personal gain. The natural order was thrown into chaos and by the late fifth century, King Uther Pendragon of Camelot had begun a systematic elimination of all those with magic, whether human or beast. This is what scholars refer to as the Great Purge.

Arthur stared at the name of his father. He had been the architect of so much suffering. How many hundreds did he kill? How many had Arthur killed in his name? People like this little girl and her mother in the diorama to his right. People like Merlin. That chaotic din from his memory yesterday morning came back again, stronger this time. His stomach roiled. Behind him, one of those schoolchildren let out a piercing shriek. He turned.

Smoke filled the air, burning his lungs and making his eyes water. Men and women ran screaming into the woods, some clutching children tight to their breast or dragging them along by the hand. Arthur’s horse shied beneath him as one of his father’s knights thundered past on his mount, sword drawn, cloak fluttering in the wind. There was no one to fight in that direction, just those fleeing the carnage.

He wanted to call out for the knight to stop but he didn’t know how. He couldn’t do anything. Things had gone wrong so quickly, he had barely moved since the fighting began. He’d been given this opportunity to prove his strength and he was wasting it. Through the smoke, Arthur could see a flash of metal and a skirted silhouette crumpled to the ground. He’d _told_ them to spare the women and children. If he were a stronger leader, like his father, they would have _listened_.

A whimper drew his attention to the side. On the ground lay a small boy, maybe 8 or 10 years of age, with a crossbow bolt protruding from his side. He didn’t know what to do. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, just for a moment, and a tear dropped onto his cheek. He told himself it was only because of the smoke.

Arthur left before he made himself sick. He didn’t stop moving until he stumbled under the banner reading, “Now Entering King Arthur’s Reign.” This is what he’d come for.

A large painting hung on the wall to the left. The prominent figure at the center was a tall man with dark hair and a heavily jeweled crown. Dozens of other figures stood before him. Arthur wouldn’t have known it was meant to depict his coronation except for the caption below the frame reading, “The Crowning of King Arthur.” Nearly everything about the scene was wrong, but he supposed he couldn’t expect much from a painting dated 1784.  About the only detail the artist got right was that the knights wore red. He searched the scene for Merlin. It took a minute for him to realize Merlin was meant to be the old man standing off to the side, presumably the one to have presented the oaths and the crown.

Shaking his head, Arthur moved on. A life-sized waxwork model claiming to portray Guinevere was beautifully constructed with elaborately arranged blonde hair and an ornate gown in rich green tones. Nothing about the figure sparked any trace of recognition in his mind.

There were a few well preserved pieces of nondescript pottery that could have belonged to anyone, an assortment of gold coins that looked authentic, and a book from the late half of the 12th century claiming to be the first full written account of Arthur’s deeds. He studied each exhibit, scoured them for clues that would remove the block on his memories. He even read the description below the glass case that held nothing but a sign stating that the artefact had been temporarily removed from display for analysis.

Unearthed at a construction site in spring 1971, these metal fragments may appear modern, but radiocarbon dating of the organic matter suspended in the surrounding sediment dates this artefact to the 5th or 6th century, leading some scholars to believe this may be the remnants of the very sword wielded by Mordred at the Battle of Camlann.

He glared at the empty case. He was getting nowhere here.

Arthur’s mobile chimed and he answered without checking to see who was calling.

“Arthur,” Merlin said.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“ _Sorry._ ”

Great, now Arthur had offended him.

“No, I didn’t… I was expecting Robert with an update from work.” He got the words out then instantly wanted them back. He hadn’t planned to tell Merlin where he was. Merlin, of course, honed right in on the discrepancy.

“Where are you?”

He’d messed up twice now in less than 24 hours. He had no choice but to confess.

“What are you doing there? That place is more misinformation than not.”

“Yeah, I’m noticing that, but I had to try something.” Arthur wasn’t going to bring up their non-kiss again.  Merlin seemed to have already forgotten about it and Arthur wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He also wasn’t going to admit to his momentary confusion that morning. Merlin would just worry about it needlessly.  He told Merlin about his meeting with his boss instead.

“You could have tried talking to me. I’ll never understand your stubborn insistence on doing everything on your own.”

Arthur was certain that wasn’t the case. He could clearly remember more than one instance where the only thing he wanted was Merlin by his side.

“That’s not what this is about.”

“No?” Arthur could tell Merlin didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t confessing to any more than he already had. Merlin sighed. “Stay where you are. I’m coming to get you.”

“I can make it home fine on my own.”

“No. I’m going to show you something. I’ll take you back to where you were born.”

“To Camelot?”

“There’s not much left, but there might be a few things you recognize. I’ll show you. Only if you want, of course.”

It wasn’t a difficult decision.

Arthur skimmed the rest of the museum while he waited for Merlin to arrive. He walked through the exhibit of bog bodies on loan from the British Museum, watched a short video chronicling a research team’s hunt for the mythical Crystal Cave, and read through the names on the plaque memorializing the victims of the Beltane Massacre of 1982. Even with all that, he still had time for a leisurely meal in the canteen.

Merlin sent him a text when he arrived and they set off toward the remains of Camelot, heading east and crossing the border into England. Arthur kept his eyes on the landscape, looking for anything he might recognize—the rise of a hill, the path of a stream. Just when Arthur was about to ask how much further they had to go, Merlin pulled the car off the road at a field entrance.

“We walk from here,” Merlin said.

They followed a low stone wall separating two fields of winter wheat for a quarter hour, then moved into a large wooded area with Merlin leading the way along animal trails. When they came to a stream with no bridge is sight, Merlin said, “this way,” and turned north, heading downstream.

“Here.” Merlin pointed to a shallow section and scooped up a handful of grey pebbles from the stream bottom. “Last time I was here this was silted in. People think of streams as a constant, but they’re continually changing. Eroding, filling in, shifting alignment even.” Merlin held his hand out to Arthur for a better view.

“You’re holding rocks.” Was he meant to be impressed?

“Yeah, but they’re not just any rocks. This was a proper ford at one time, with a nice road on either side, all built with rubble from Camelot’s walls.

“Say that again?” He must have misunderstood.

“The citadel took heavy damage during a siege sometime in the 1300s. The center of power had already shifted by then to London, and the walls were never repaired. More and more the stones were repurposed for new building projects.”

On the far bank, the layer of gravel disappeared beneath several feet of soil. Merlin dropped the rocks back into the stream, rinsed his hand, and started picking his way through the shallows, stepping on rocks projecting above the water surface to keep his feet as dry as possible. When a suitable stepping-stone was unavailable, he used magic to maneuver one into place.

“Watch your step. We still have a ways to go and I don’t want to have to listen to you complain about wet socks.”

Arthur lagged behind, trying to come to grips with the idea that the walls of Camelot had fallen, had been carted away piece by piece and reduced to gravel.  Merlin had already disappeared into the trees on the far bank when Arthur started across the stream. He raised his voice to call for Merlin to wait but stopped, turned his head back toward the west bank. He heard… something.

“Hello?”

The noise stopped.

He closed his eyes, trying to estimate where the sound had originated. It had to be somewhere nearby. Birds chirped as they landed in a nearby tree, an insect buzzed past his ear, the stream bubbled over the meager remains of the ford, and the sound came again. He recognized it this time, a soft crying—a child maybe or a young woman.

Arthur stepped off his stepping-stone and into the stream. The icy water rushed into his shoes, but he paid it no mind; the sound was louder than before.

“Who’s there?” He waited for a reply. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

He took another step upstream, convinced the sound originated in that direction. The crying grew louder, then cut off at the unmistakable thundering of a conspicuous human ploughing through the forest at full speed.

“Arthur? What are you doing?” Merlin puffed out, then paused to catch his breath. “I thought you were right behind me but I turned around and you weren’t there.”

“I thought I heard something.”

“What?”

Arthur turned in a full circle to check the area, splashing the ankle deep water further up onto his legs. “It’s nothing.” Merlin would say he was imagining things and maybe he would be right. There wasn’t anyone else out here. “Probably just a bird.”

For what little good it did, Arthur trudged back to the stones and finished crossing the stream. Once on the other side, the path narrowed and then disappeared. Merlin barely even slowed down.

Twenty minutes later, Merlin came to a sudden stop and said, “This is it.”

Arthur frowned. He’d been expecting proper ruins—half-toppled walls, piles of stone rubble, broken statues, indentations in the ground where roads used to be. There wasn’t any of that. Just a few unnatural hills in the middle of an old growth forest. ~~~~

Merlin stretched out his hand and muttered something indecipherable. Nothing happened. Arthur snickered and Merlin glared at him. Then, out of the corner of his eye, a shift in the shadows caught Arthur’s attention and Merlin’s glare turned into a smirk. Arthur squinted. It almost looked as if he’d seen the ground move. No, the ground _was_ moving! A whole chunk of earth the size of his television rose above the surrounding area, leaving a black hole beneath. Merlin moved his hand to the side and then down. The mass of earth slowly followed along.

Arthur peered down the exposed hole. A narrow set of crude stairs descended into darkness. That’s where they were going?

He looked to Merlin. “We don’t have a torch.”

“Yes, we do.” Merlin chanted another spell and with a whoosh, a flame burst to life along the wall of the stairway. It was followed immediately by another and another until there was a trail of light leading out of view.

That wasn’t what he had been thinking of, but it worked just as well.

“I’ve protected this place. It was the most I could do without drawing unwanted attention.”

Arthur took a step toward the opening but Merlin grabbed his arm, said, “This will be hard.”

“I think I can manage some narrow steps.” And just to prove his point, he moved Merlin aside and began his decent at a good pace.

Behind him, he heard Merlin say, “That isn’t what I meant.” Arthur didn’t look back.

“Arthur?” The sound of footfalls started from above. “Slow down!”

He sped up instead.

The stairs were one long set with no landings to turn and double back in direction. He tried to lay out the castle in his mind and guess where this path would lead. The treasury? The dungeons? It was impossible to tell. Arthur continued down until the stairs finally emptied into a cavernous room with a high ceiling. The space was filled with a series of rectangular stone blocks about six feet in length and waist high. He was in the crypt.

Merlin barreled into the room behind him, nearly running into Arthur’s back. “Thanks for waiting, prat.”

Stone statues ringed the chamber. One stood out; it was taller than the rest.  Arthur went over to see if he could recognize the subject. He studied it for a minute. There was something a little off about the countenance, but there was no doubt that this was him, clad in armour and holding his sword aloft as if ready to lead a charge to defend the kingdom. At the base of the statue was an inscription.

King Arthur Pendragon, Defender of Camelot, Founder of Albion

“Since the people didn’t have a body to inter and visit, Gwen commissioned this statue.” Merlin’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“It looks good.” It looked _strange_. He’d never expected to see himself immortalized in stone.

“I didn’t bring you here to see yourself etched into stone. I thought Judith might have had a good idea about taking you to see your parent’s graves. And our friends are here… Many of them, anyway.”

Arthur spun to look back at the tombs.

“Gwen’s is that one over there.”

Arthur forced his feet to move to where Merlin had pointed. He ran a hand against the cold stone of the sarcophagus. The visage on the tomb cover was of a pretty, but mature woman. It felt like looking at the image of a stranger. Surely he should be able to remember something of her, standing as he was just inches away from her bones… if there were even bones left. Maybe there was nothing but dust. He tried harder, closed his eyes. Dust…

Dust floated through the air, rose up toward the ceiling, carried by the heat of the candle flame. Arthur sat at his desk, papers strewn about. The speech was in his hands, but his brain glossed over the words.

“Come to bed, Arthur.”

Arthur didn’t look up. He knew what he would see. Guinevere, standing in her nightgown with that look on her face that told him she thought he was being unreasonable.

“I’ll be there shortly.”

“You said that an hour ago.”

“I need to memorize this speech.”

“You already have it memorized and Queen Annis won’t even be here for another week.”

“It’s my duty to—”

“To take care of yourself! You need a bit of time to relax. Why don’t you go for a hunt tomorrow?”

“I’m to hear petitions in the afternoon.”

“That’s what you have me for. Why bother with a queen if you aren’t going to let her help you?”

“Leon and the others are heading out on patrol first thing in the morning.”

“I didn’t say you had to take them.”

“I can’t just go off alone. I’m the king.”

“Of course you won’t go alone,” she said, as if the solution were perfectly obvious. “You’ll take Merlin with you.”

Arthur finally looked up from his work and—

A massive stab of pain erupted behind his eyes. His knees threatened to give out. He leaned one hand against the vault for support, the other, he clutched to his forehead.

“Arthur? Stop trying so hard. You’re hurting yourself.”

He batted Merlin’s hands away as the man started fussing over him.

Guinevere. He could see her now, her long dark curls, her pretty dresses, the stance she took when she asserted herself. She’d been wise and compassionate, and she’d known how to deal with him when he was in one of his moods. Precious few people knew how to do that. That made her the perfect queen for Camelot, the perfect wife for him, and he’d loved her for it. Merlin had been right after all.

And yet, he’d given up on her a long time ago. When he’d been wounded with only a few days left in this world, he’d had a choice. He could order Gaius to take him back to Camelot—give a proper goodbye to his knights, to his wife—or he could allow Merlin to drag him across the countryside. Even as angry as he’d been at that moment, he’d devoted himself to his one last chance. Not for survival—even before Camlann, he’d felt death closing in, knew it was his time—but a chance to redeem whatever it was he had with Merlin. Give him a chance to prove their whole relationship wasn’t a lie. And for that chance, that tiny sliver of hope, he’d given up on ever seeing Guinevere again. For all practical purposes, his marriage ended there.

He thought that maybe he understood what Merlin had been saying earlier. “Did you ever have one?” What had Merlin called it? “An ordinary love?” He kept his tone even, tried not to give himself away.

“No.” Merlin said quickly, then paused. “Maybe. I don’t know. It was a long time ago. I was young and foolish.”

Arthur tried for the joke. “Now you’re just foolish.” It wasn’t funny. He frowned. “What happened?”

“She died.”

Of course.  What other answer could there have been? Everyone left Merlin alone in the end.

“I’m sorry.”

Merlin let out a single forced laugh, barely more than a puff of air.

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing; he was obviously thinking of someone in particular, but Arthur was too tired to press the matter.

Arthur recognized the tomb next to Guinevere’s as one of his knights. “That’s …” but the name wouldn’t come.

“Percival,” Merlin said.

“Yes.”

He surveyed the other monuments. He didn’t recognize all of them, but there were many that he did. Next to Percival was Leon and over in that corner lay Sir Brennis, with Sir Ector and his wife, the Lady Sefin, filling the spaces next to him. And his father… Arthur couldn’t see his tomb from here, but he knew where it was. He finally understood. Everyone, everything he’d ever loved was gone. Even the castle walls were no more. All that was left of his home, the place where he was born, where he grew up, the place he’d dedicated his life to, was this crypt. He slumped to the ground.

“Maybe I made a mistake bringing you here,” Merlin said.

“No.”

“Come on, Arthur, I’m taking you home.”

“I _am_ home.” He belonged here, buried with his people, with his friends and family.

Merlin dropped to the ground in front of him. He claimed Arthur had some sort of grand destiny awaiting him, but if someone was going to be needed to carry the world through a time of crisis, that person would be Merlin, with his powerful magic, not Arthur.

Tears spilled over and ran down his cheeks. He wiped them away with the back of his sleeve, but more sprang up in their place. He couldn’t remember crying like this since— ~~~~

“You promised, Morgana! You said you’d tell me why I don’t have a mother! It’s my birthday. Make it my present.”

“It’s because it’s your birthday I shouldn’t tell you, but…”

Merlin smoothed a hand down Arthur’s arm.

Arthur stumbled down to his father’s chambers, burst in without knocking. What Morgana had told him couldn’t be true! She was playing a mean trick on him and his father would set him straight.

“It’s all right to be upset, Arthur, but it is getting late and you don’t want to have to walk back to the car in the dark. Come on.” Merlin helped him to his feet.

Uther frowned at him in disappointment. “Crying is a thing for little girls, Arthur. You must show the people you are strong or they will never respect you.”

He allowed Merlin to lead him back up to the surface, feeling sick with himself at how excited he’d acted on his arrival. He stumbled his way through the forest, the trees now taking on a different look—as if they were the gravestones of his once beautiful and prosperous city. Even the stream seemed different with the way the fading sun cast a strange reddish hue on the water.

He watched the fields and villages pass by in a blur, the sound of the tyres on the road lulling him into a daze. He didn’t even realize where they were until Merlin pulled the car to a stop, said, “I’ll be right back.”

Merlin had routed them through Knighton and they were parked outside his house. Arthur had just been here the day before last. How could he have missed that the room with the empty drawers and the dust was meant for him?

When Merlin returned, tossing his laptop and who knows what else into the backseat, Arthur said, “I’m tired, Merlin. Can’t we stay here tonight?” He’d convince Merlin to set a fire in that unnaturally clean fireplace of his. Maybe that would drive out the chill he felt in his bones.

“We need to get back. Think about Garrett.”

“You’re right.” He should be more concerned with the present, but his heart hurt too much to feel guilty.

“You don’t have to stay awake on my account.”

“I hate sleeping in cars.”

Arthur pulled Merlin’s road atlas out from where it had been half tucked under the seat. He needed something to occupy his mind and this would do as well as anything. A thick, repeated outline in pencil marked what must have been the borders of Camelot. He traced the line with his finger. According to this, he didn’t even live within his old kingdom anymore. He lived in Mithian’s lands now.

Back at his flat, Arthur fell into the armchair and Merlin headed for the door, keys in hand.

“Where are you going?” Arthur said, his voice rough.

“To get dinner. I won’t be gone long. I saw an Indian restaurant down the street. Is that all right?”

He grunted in response. He didn’t care; he wasn’t hungry.

When Merlin returned, he goaded Arthur to the table and started dishing out the food.

“You don’t have to do this, Merlin.”

“You’re right,” Merlin said, setting a plate of food in front of him. “I don’t.”

Arthur sat with his elbows on the table, pushing his food around with his spoon while Merlin ate.

“Please, Arthur. You need to eat something.”

Arthur dropped the spoon. It hit the edge of his plate with a jarring clank.

“What am I doing here, Merlin?” He rubbed his fingers in a circle over his right temple. “And don’t give me any of that mystic destiny rubbish.”

“I’m sorry,” Merlin said. “I don’t have all the answers.”

“Then what good are you?!” he snapped, slamming the palm of his hand against the table. He regretted the words even before Merlin’s expression crumpled. No wonder the man found it so hard to believe that Arthur would actually want to kiss him. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean that. I’m feeling helpless and upset and I took it out on you.”

Merlin cocked his head to the side. “ _Arthur_ —”

“I apologized once Merlin, I’m not doing it again.”

“That’s _not_ what I was going to say. I mean, I think that might be the best apology you’ve ever given me. Did Judith teach you how to do that?”

“What?”

“Never mind, I’ll explain later. For now, maybe it would help for you to think of all this as a reward.”

 _A_ _reward?_ What kind of reward involved being forced to live in a time where everything you ever held dear was gone? What kind of reward made you feel as if the mere fact that you were breathing was some sort of cosmic mistake?

“You can do anything you want now. You’re no longer bound by duty or custom. You used to daydream about being able to live like this. Of course, no one is going to give you any special treatment anymore either.”

“You don’t consider _this_ special treatment?” He indicated the table while trying to encompass everything that Merlin had done for him since he died. All the waiting and searching, saving his life and taking care of him.

“Yeah but none of this is because you’re a king or a prince. It’s because you’re my friend and I… I want to help you any way I can.”

“Merlin, you are the most loyal and faithful friend a man could ever ask for. I’m not sure I deserve such devotion.”

“Oh, you don’t,” Merlin said with a straight face and Arthur’s chest had just enough time to tighten before Merlin broke out in a grin and said, “But it’s yours anyway.”

Arthur rolled his eyes at Merlin’s pitiful excuse for teasing.

Merlin stood up to take his empty plate to the sink. Arthur grabbed his arm as he walked past. “Things can never be like they were before.”

“I know,” Merlin said offhand. Then he paused, set his plate aside, and lowered himself to one knee so that Arthur didn’t have to look up at him. More seriously he said, “Of course I know. In a lot of ways, I wouldn’t even want them to be. I lied to you. Every day. For years. I hated that. I don’t want to go backward.”

Merlin lifted his hand and for a moment, Arthur thought he was going to rest it on Arthur’s knee, but then he pulled back, changing his mind. Did he think the contact would be unwelcome? Or maybe he was afraid of leading Arthur on.

“Merlin…”

“Shut up?”

He shook his head. “You’re an idiot.” And Arthur was an idiot too, because the crypt wasn’t the only thing left of Camelot and maybe he could be happy here, outside the borders of his old kingdom, as long as Merlin was willing to stay with him. “Merlin—”

His phone vibrated with a text. Before he could read the message, a call rang in.

“Robert, what’s going on?” He could feel Merlin’s eyes on him, just as curious as he was for the update.

“I sent you an address. You need to get down here right now. It’s… it’s bad.”

“Garrett?”

“I’m sorry, James. He’s dead.”


	9. Sidelines

Arthur pushed his chair back and stood. Merlin followed suit, hauling himself off the ground.

"What's wrong?" Merlin said.

"I have to go. They found Garrett."

Merlin's face fell. "I'm sorry." Arthur's tone must have made it obvious that this wasn't good news.

Before Merlin's inevitable announcement that he was coming along, Arthur said, "It'll be a closed crime scene. I can't let you come with me.”

A tiny muscle twitched in Merlin's brow but what he said was, "I've seen enough dead bodies."

Arthur nodded. He wished Merlin never had to see another.

He picked his mobile back up and tapped the icon featuring the ridiculous looking cartoon dragon that served as the local taxi company’s mascot. Whoever developed the artwork clearly had no concept of how terrifying a real dragon was, of how—

—the air reeked of burnt hair and charred flesh. The battle had barely started and already all the knights Arthur had brought with him were either unconscious or dead. Merlin was the only other man still on his feet, a state that seemed unlikely to continue much longer. It was brave of him to have volunteered, but Arthur should never have agreed to let him come.

He wished his servant had enough sense to run—there would be no shame in it, not when the earth itself trembled at the dragon’s every step—but Merlin would never run, not so long as Arthur held his ground. And hold he must.

The dragon loomed over him, ready for the kill, its breath hotter than any blacksmith’s forge. Arthur picked up a discarded lance from the ground. The muscles in his forearm quivered as he tightened his grip on the wooden shaft. He took a few breaths, quick and shallow, to help steady his courage. He had one chance left. If he failed, he would die, Merlin would die, and the whole of Camelot would fall with them.

“What are you doing?” Merlin said.

Arthur glanced down at his phone. “I…” His thumb hovered over the button to make his reservation. “…need to book a taxi.”

“No, you’ll take my car. You keep forgetting that you don’t have to do everything on your own anymore.”

Arthur accepted the keys and said, "I'll be back late. Don’t wait up for me," before heading out the door.

The crime scene was in an old industrial district. Arthur had been in the area before, working another case. The buildings were abandoned for the most part with broken windows and peeling paint. Weeds grew up through the cracks in the concrete roadways and Arthur barely missed a large pothole that would likely have damaged Merlin’s car.

Once he got close enough, an array of blue police lights made a beacon in the dark, showing him exactly where he needed to go.

Arthur ducked under the crime scene tape and into a brightly lit nightmare. Floodlights had been set up so that no detail would be missed just because the sun had set. In the center of the area laid a body—Garrett—face up, arms and legs sprawled out wide. The department photographer stepped around the body getting his required shots. All things considered, there was relatively little blood. Garrett must have been killed somewhere else and moved here afterward to be displayed. The murderer had made no attempt to hide the corpse; he’d wanted his work to be found.

Robert looked up from where he squatted next to Garrett’s body.

"What have you got so far?"

Robert pointed with a pen. "Stab wound here in the chest." It was hard to miss; the knife still jutted from the wound. “Abrasions and bruising at the wrists and ankles—”

“So he was tied up.”

“Looks that way. But that’s not the most interesting bit. Look here." Robert put a gloved finger on Garrett's upper lip and lifted back.

Arthur grimaced. Garrett's front teeth, his upper incisors and canines, were all missing. Arthur moved closer to get a better look.

"Lower ones are gone too."

“I don’t suppose anyone has found them.” Arthur looked around at the team of forensics personnel gathering evidence.

Robert shook his head.

"Maybe he..." He'd been about to suggest that Garrett might have had them knocked out, either due to an accident, like a fall or a vehicular crash, or as a side effect from some other form of intentional violence, like a blow to the head, but other than the smears of blood on his lips and chin, there didn't appear to be any outward signs of trauma to his face. That left only one explanation that Arthur could think of: the killer had taken Garrett’s teeth. On purpose. As some sort of sick, fucked up trophy.

Murderers who took trophies weren't generally content with one. They wanted more, a whole collection. The boss had better approve overtime for this. They were going to need all the help they could get. They needed to figure out why Garrett had been targeted. Was it because he worked for the police? Was it someone with an obsession or a grudge? The answer may well save someone else’s life.

"Whoever did this isn’t going to stop here." Arthur went on to explain his reasoning, hoping Robert would contradict him with a better theory. He didn’t have one.

"But hey, listen James. I heard a rumour that we're not going to be allowed to work this case. Too personal. They're going to pull in a team from somewhere else, send some of us to their home offices for a while to fill in."

"A swap?"

"That's what everyone is saying. Apparently no one’s got anyone to spare. You know how it is. Fewer and fewer people sign up to take the detective’s exam every year. That's why I wanted you to get down here as soon as you could. Knew you'd want to do all you can before we’re officially kicked off the case."

Arthur ran his hands over his face. His day had started poorly and he’d been on a steady decline since. He had so much going on, he wasn’t sure he could handle something else right now, not when it was as big as this. And yet, he didn’t want someone else handling the case either. He was only a sergeant; he’d never be given the lead on a murder investigation, but he’d expected that he’d at least be able to help.

He let out a heavy exhale. He might only have a few hours here. He needed to pull himself together, get some work done. He'd lost friends before—Pallinore, Owain, Geraint, Elyan, Galahad. Bedivere and Kay. Madog and Bertrand. Others whose names he couldn't recall, faces that were still a blur but left an ache in his chest. When he closed his eyes, their bodies piled up before him in a giant heaping mess of blood and guts and heads cracked open. He could see Morgana laughing as she crowned herself queen and sat atop the pile as if it were her throne, but she was gone now too.

He swayed on his feet—

"James?"

—then righted himself. He felt the set of keys in his trouser pocket. He wasn't alone anymore. He could handle this.

"All right, listen up!" DCI Newey had arrived. "I know many of you have heard about the personnel exchange, and I'm not going to hide it from you. Garrett was one of our own. As much as I want us to be the ones to arrest the bastard that did this, we're going to follow procedure and let someone with a more objective eye take the lead on this investigation.”

A collective grumble from Arthur’s co-workers interrupted their boss’s speech.

“Having said that, Detective Inspector Justin Holder from Swansea Central will be here in the morning to take over. I expect you all to give him your full cooperation. This isn’t a pissing match. I don’t want to see any posturing.

“Everyone wants to drop what they’re working on for this, but we do still have other cases. Some of you will be allowed to help with this, but you'll only have a limited supporting role. “You," Newey pointed to Arthur then Robert, "and you," he dropped his hand, "are going to be heading off for other assignments. Craddock, you'll be replacing DI Holder at his home office. Robert, you're switching with a sergeant from the bay office. As for everyone else, I've got a list of priories and assignments right here.” He held up a thin folder for a moment. “Make sure you take a look before you leave.” With that, he handed the folder to Paul, the only other person within arm’s reach.

Arthur strode over to Newey before anyone else had a chance to divert his attention.

“I’m not trying to complain, sir, but wouldn’t it make more sense to send someone of the same rank as Holder back to Swansea? I know DI Cook is about to take off on maternity leave but Yates—”

“Yates is busy with the Bute Park murder and doesn’t have the same amount of influence on the others that you do. I need you to set the example. If everyone sees you going along with this plan, they’ll follow your lead.”

Arthur tried to hold in a sigh. If this was Newey’s reasoning, then there was nothing he could say that was going to convince him to let Arthur remain on the case.

“You can stay and do what you can tonight but you’ve got some traveling to do in the morning so I don’t want to see you here too late. I’ll need a write-up of your work so far on this before you leave. I’ll make sure Holder gets it when he arrives in the morning.”

Then the boss was off, talking with the crime scene investigators bagging evidence and the scared teen who’d called in the body, doing everything he could before all his detectives were either reassigned to other cases or relegated to insignificant roles.

By the time Arthur finished his summary—a complete, bulleted list painstakingly typed on his phone—it was two in the morning. He stepped into his flat quietly so that he wouldn’t disturb Merlin’s sleep, but found the lights on and Merlin sitting up working on his laptop.

 “I told you not to wait up.”

“You did, but your friend just died, and even before that, you’d had a rough day. I wanted to be awake when you came back.”

“You didn’t have to do that. I’m okay now.”

“I’m sure.” Merlin didn’t sound like he was lying, but Arthur thought he might be, just to appease him.

Arthur sat on the couch at the opposite end as Merlin, leaned his head all the way back, and closed his eyes. His head ached.

“That bad?” Merlin closed his laptop and moved it to the coffee table.

“You have no idea.” He filled Merlin in on everything, from the gruesome details of the murder to the personnel exchange.

“If you’re supposed to be in Swansea in the morning,” Merlin said, “then you need to be waking up in a few hours. You should be sleeping right now.”

“I won’t be able to sleep. I have too much on my mind.”

“In that case, I’ll sit up with you.”

After a few minutes of silence, Merlin said, “You know, you never did explain how you and Garrett met.”

And so Arthur told him. The whole ugly story. The one he didn’t like to talk about, didn’t like to remember. It was safe though, telling Merlin about it. Merlin wouldn’t blame him, wouldn’t judge him.

“I was new at the time. I’d just been hired a couple of weeks prior and was on patrol when I noticed someone lurking outside a house. Right there with me watching, he opened a window and climbed in. The lights were on inside and I could see the silhouettes of people moving around, so I knew it wasn’t that he’d locked himself out of his own home.

“I moved in closer to investigate and from the opened window I could see that the intruder had a gun. He was waving it around, pointing it at the homeowners—Garrett and his wife, Enid. He was raving, going on and on about how he and Enid were meant for each other. I called for the firearms unit but worried they wouldn’t get there in time. I went in and tried to defuse the situation myself. If I hadn’t, maybe things would have turned out differently. The situation escalated and Enid was shot.

“Garrett always said I saved his life. He thought if I hadn’t been there, the man would have killed both of them. I’m not so sure. The firearms unit arrived a few minutes later and dealt with the shooter.

“Enid was rushed to hospital but died from complications a week later. Garrett contacted me after her funeral, wanted to know how he could join the police, said he wanted the opportunity to put bad guys in prison before they hurt innocent people.”

“What happened to the shooter?”

“He was a brute, took three bullets to the chest, but managed to survive. At the trial, he claimed that he was just there to talk and that I blew it all out of proportion, said I provoked him.”

“Provoked him into shooting someone else? That doesn’t even make sense. You don’t really believe that.”

“Well, no, but sometimes I wonder…”

“You should leave the thinking to me if those are the kinds of things you wonder about.”

Arthur rolled his eyes and picked up his story again. “Brent Garr, that’s the man’s name. He’s serving out a life sentence at Long Lartin. I had Paul contact them when we realized Garrett was missing. He’s the only one I can think of that would have a grudge against Garrett, but they’ve not had any escaped inmates at Long Lartin for years, so he couldn’t have done it.”

Merlin kept him talking for another half an hour with random chatter. He didn’t feel better. He couldn’t stop thinking that there must have been something that he could have done—checked in on Garrett sooner, found a lead in an interview, said something to his boss that would have let him work the day. He said as much.

“Maybe you’re giving yourself too much credit here,” Merlin said.

“ _What was that?_ ”

Merlin was undeterred by his sharp tone. “I’m just saying that you’re only one man. You can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Trust me; I’ve tried. You’re not responsible for what happened to Garrett, just like you weren’t responsible for the murder of his wife.”

Arthur wanted to argue but all that came out was a yawn.

“You need sleep. I could help if you still don’t think you can manage.”

Arthur was sure that Merlin was saying he could use magic to help him fall asleep, but Arthur’s mind was distracted by more prosaic ways that Merlin could help him relax. All Arthur would have to do is turn around and stretch out and he could use the other man’s legs to rest his head. Merlin would need a place to set his hands but he could put one on Arthur’s chest and comb the other through Arthur’s hair. If having Merlin’s arms around him could help Arthur through the process of dying, then surely a little physical contact could help him relax in this case too. He would be asleep within minutes.

He tried to recall if he’d ever been tempted to do something similar in his old life. Discounting the extreme circumstance of dying, nothing immediately came to mind. Did that mean Merlin was right and that he was only thinking this way because his memories were a mess? Would he even be questioning his desires if Merlin hadn’t told him he was confused the other night? His already aching head began to throb.

“I’ll be fine on my own.”

He could almost hear Merlin objecting to his phrasing, but all he said as Arthur forced himself to stand was, “Sleep well, Arthur.”

-x-x-

Merlin, the lucky git, snored softly on the couch as Arthur stumbled bleary eyed toward the door. He felt only mildly better when an hour and a half later he walked into the Swansea Central office, the nap he’d managed on the train from Cardiff having bumped his total sleep for the night up to four hours. He made his way to the break room, poured himself a large cup of coffee then tracked down the department’s chief inspector to get his assignment. He was handed a thin folder and shown to a vacant desk that he could use while he was working out of this office.

There wasn’t much to the file, just a report detailing the response to the original 101 call, a few photos, and a phone log. The case appeared rather simple—a break-in at a residence with nothing of value noted as missing. This wasn’t the sort of thing that would have been assigned to the detective inspector that Arthur was supposedly filling in for. After asking around, he found that Holder’s work had been distributed to others who were already familiar with the cases. That left Arthur to pick up the new work. In addition, the phone log at the top of the file showed that the victim, a man named Gregory Walters, had enquired about the status of his case no less than three times in the last 24 hours. Apparently, they were putting Arthur on the case not so much out of a concern for public safety or the pursuit of justice as it was to get this bloke to stop pestering the department.

Arthur signed out a car and drove to Mr. Walters’ home to conduct an interview. If he finished with this quickly, maybe he could get back to the half dozen other cases that he was still responsible for investigating back home. Unlike Holder, whose previous work had been reassigned to allow him to focus on Garrett’s murder, Arthur was only adding to his workload by participating in this employee exchange.   

Arthur walked up a narrow path to the front door, noticing the small security company sign staked into the ground next to a row of shrubs. Before Arthur could even knock, the door opened and he was greeted with a profuse amount of thanks by Mr. Walters, a heavy-set man with grey hair around the sides of his head and a large bald spot on top.

Arthur introduced himself and asked Mr. Walters to retell the story from the beginning.

“I’d been away visiting my new granddaughter.”

“That must be very exciting. Congratulations.”

“Ah, thanks… I’m very happy to finally be a grandfather, but the baby… she’s not doing well.”

Arthur didn’t know how to respond to that. The best he could come up with was, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’d still be there if I didn’t think my presence was more of an annoyance than a comfort to my daughter. I’m surprised she tolerated my coddling as long as she did.  She can be very… strong-headed at times. She insists everything is going to be okay, says she found a specialist that’s agreed to help.”  

As much as Arthur liked detail, this was far more than he needed. He gently guided Mr. Walters back on track.

“When I got home, I found a mess in my archive.”

“Archive?”

“I’ll show you. It’s just through here.”

Mr. Walters led him through the house and into what was clearly meant to be a bedroom, except instead of a bed and wardrobe, it was a small computer desk and a series of waist high filing cabinets with wide but shallow drawers that filled the space.  The computer looked to be untouched but several of the cabinet drawers hung open and dozens of sets of large papers were strewn about the floor.

Arthur crouched down to study one of the papers.

“The cop that responded when I reported the crime Monday night said I could clean this all up but I knew it was better to wait until a real detective had a chance to see it. I haven’t touched a thing, I swear.”

Arthur took a deep breath. He had reviewed the pictures from the original incident report, and while that was never the same as viewing a scene in person—things always seemed to look smaller in real life—in this case, it would have made little difference to Arthur’s investigation if Mr. Walters had cleared the files away. He didn’t explain. Mr. Walters seemed like the type of person that wouldn’t respond well to the lesson.

“What are all these?” Arthur said. They looked like plans of some sort, but the report had only listed them as “documents.”

“I was an architect before I retired. Had my own company—Envision Architects.” He looked to Arthur as if searching for a trace of name recognition. “Never heard of us?”

Arthur shook his head. “Sorry.”

Mr. Walters’ whole frame seemed to droop. “Ah, well, we were a small company. Small enough that I didn’t have anyone to take over when I retired. I had to close the office. I sold most of the equipment and furniture, but when it came to the files…  I couldn’t bear to toss them out.”

“I noticed on my way in that you had a security system installed on this house. Didn’t they get notification of the break-in when it occurred?”

“I suppose they would have, but I turned the service off a few months ago. Seemed like a waste of money. This is a safe neighbourhood.” Mr. Walters did a slow turn, taking in the whole of the room. “I just don’t see what they could have been after. There’s more interesting things for a thief in other parts of the house—electronics, my late wife’s jewelry. And they made quite a mess while they were here. I don’t understand that either. I was gone more than a day. They didn’t have to rush. I suppose maybe they didn’t know I was out of town, but it seems awfully convenient. I don’t get out much but the one time I do…”

Arthur thought he had an explanation. “Even if they knew you were gone, they might not have known that you stopped payment on your security service. They would have been racing to beat the arrival of the police.”

And as for the matter of what they were after in the first place, an architect’s plans could be useful for any number of criminal activities. Whoever wanted building plans likely had some other crime in mind.

“Did you ever work for a secure building, a bank or a prison, anything like that?

The man shook his head. “We didn’t generally do big projects like that. Mostly we did single family homes, but a few commercial or institutional buildings too—a couple of small doctor’s offices, some park buildings, that sort of thing.”

Single family homes… Arthur would have to keep an eye out for home invasions at the addresses where Mr. Walters’ company had done work.

“You’ll need to check through every file to see what’s missing and I’ll need a complete listing of the full inventory.”

“Of course! And I can get the full project list for you right now. I have it all ready, knew you’d be wanting it.”

“One last thing,” Arthur said, more than ready to be done with this interview. “Does anyone else have a key to the house?”

“Only my daughter.”

“I’ll need her contact information as well.”

The man jotted down her name and phone number on the back of the inventory list and handed the thick stack of papers to Arthur.

“Call me if you think of anything else.” Arthur gave Mr. Walters his contact information and headed toward the door. Mr. Walters followed along behind him.

“Wait. That’s it? Aren’t you going to dust for prints or something?”

And this time, Arthur really did have to give the man a lesson in crime investigation. It took him the better part of an hour to explain that not all crimes warranted every available forensic technique. Maybe in an ideal world they would go all out on every case, but for a non-violent crime like this, it just wasn’t practical. Mr. Walters wasn’t satisfied until Arthur mentioned that he couldn’t think of a single burglary that had been solved with latent prints.

Sadly, it turned out that the interview was the best part of his workday. When he got back to the office, he found the computer he’d been given to work with wasn’t properly hooked up to the internal network, so he had to call IT before he could start checking through the database of reported crimes to see if any matched the projects on Mr. Walters’ list.

It took a large mental effort to stay on task. His mind kept wandering back to Garrett. Everything he did took twice as long as it should have, and no amount of caffeine was helping his eyelids stay open.

It didn’t help that the list itself turned out to be a mess. There were hundreds of projects, all listed by owner name and the associated addresses, for those entries that even had them, turned out to be the billing address, not necessarily the project location. He spent hours combing through the list, but barely made a dent. He needed to delegate the rest of this work to one of his direct reports and move on, but he already had the three of them busy on other cases.

By the time five o’clock mercifully rolled around, Arthur felt ready to snap. Part of him just wanted to go home and climb straight into bed, but he’d be able to take another nap on the ride back to Cardiff. What he really needed was a way to clear his head. He texted Merlin to let him know that he was going to the shooting range before coming home. Unexpectedly, Merlin asked if he could tag along and perhaps for the first time all day, Arthur smiled. He wasn’t opposed to an audience and maybe Merlin would even let Arthur show him how to use a rifle.

-x-x-

Merlin met him outside the rifle club, and they walked in together. The woman working the front desk pulled Arthur’s rifle case from their secured storage room for him, and Arthur grabbed his shooting jacket from the locker he rented.

“Arthur,” Merlin said, his voice wary as Arthur slid his arms into the sleeves, “I think that jacket is too small for you.”

“Please remind me, _Merlin_ ,” he said, feigning patience, “exactly how much do you know about small bore?”

“That the bullets are tiny?” Merlin held up his hand with his fingers mimicking Arthur’s earlier explanation. “And that you only shoot targets.” He gave a confident nod.

“That’s what I thought.” He paused. “This jacket,” he brushed a hand down the sections of red, black and pale cream leather, “is perfectly sized.” He pulled the front panels across each other to illustrate the regulation overlap. “See?”

Merlin didn’t look convinced.

“It’s not supposed to be bulky or loose; that would defeat the purpose.”

“Uh-huh.” Merlin didn’t _sound_ convinced either.

Ignoring him, Arthur did up the buttons and noticed a strange tightness at his right shoulder. He let out a short growl of frustration.

“What’s wrong?”

“I let Owen borrow this jacket last time I was here so he could see if he liked the brand. He’s smaller than I am. He must have tightened these buckles over my shoulder here.” He reached his left hand over his shoulder in a vain attempt the get at the buckles. Reaching under his right arm wasn’t any more productive. He needed to take the jacket completely off to fix it.

“Here, let me help.” Merlin stepped behind Arthur and began tugging at the leather straps. Arthur felt a momentary pull on the jacket as Merlin cinched each buckle tight enough to move the prong from its current position, then the tension fell away.

“Not too loose.”

“Like this?”

A lump caught in Arthur’s throat. He could feel Merlin’s breath on his ear. “Yeah,” he managed to croak out. “Like that.”

Merlin didn’t move away when he finished, but let his hand glide over the back panel of the jacket to Arthur’s other shoulder. He cleared his throat and said, “Bit of lint there.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes. There hadn’t been any lint. He could hear the lie in Merlin’s voice, could feel it in the gentle, lingering pressure of his fingers.

Merlin puzzled him. Just two nights ago, he’d been uneasy with Arthur moving in close to touch him, then he went and did things like this. Merlin had said he didn’t want to go backward, back to the way things had been in Camelot. But what did that mean for what he wanted their future to look like?

Arthur turned around, said, “Thank you Merlin,” and did the only reasonable thing he could think to do when Merlin insisted on standing so close: he launched into a detailed explanation of safety procedures and the rules of a match. Before Merlin’s eyes glazed over too much, Arthur plied him with a spare pair of the headphone style hearing protection that the range kept for common use, and ushered him out to the firing range where the smell of gun oil overpowered any trace amounts of smoke in the air.

Isabel was set up at her usual firing point, switching positions from prone to kneeling.

“How are you doing tonight?” Arthur said.

“Just shot a 10.9.”

Arthur nodded in approval. It was the best possible score on a single shot, but then, Isabel was the best target shooter he knew. She’d competed internationally while at university. It was a shame her work schedule didn’t allow her to practice very often with the rest of the team. They would all benefit from her guidance.

Merlin found a tall stool and sat behind Arthur as he started his first sheet of targets. The range was only 25 yards so he couldn’t practice the full 50 metre distance that he’d face at the tournam… at the _Games._ For that, he needed the outdoor range just north of town, but they were closed in the evenings until they switched to their summer schedule in May. The six circular bulls on Arthur’s target sheet were scaled down to account for the shorter distance.

It took several minutes for him to be able to release enough tension from the day to attain this usual level of accuracy and precision, but he finally managed. The whole process was meditative in a way. When his focus was on his posture, breathing, and heartbeat, when his eye saw only the target, there was no room left for thoughts of murders or thefts or a friend’s curious behaviour.

Arthur finished his first set and retrieved the paper to show Merlin.

“I only see four holes on this target. You said there were five shots each. Did you miss one?” Merlin sounded smug.

Arthur smirked. “No, _Merlin_ , I didn’t miss. See this here? He pointed to a hole a quarter of the way into the 10 ring. “This is from two bullets.” He looked to Merlin, expecting to see him terribly impressed. Merlin kept his expression flat, and Arthur had no doubt that he was doing it on purpose just to be irritating.

Arthur scowled at him and set up another sheet of targets. He was just finishing when Vincent Adder strolled past with one of his cronies.

“Who the hell is he trying to impress?” Vince didn’t even try to keep his comments at a discreet volume. “Craddock and his detective boys think they’re going to go to the World Games and do better than me and my team do every day at work?  What a joke!”

The man was a complete arse. There was no way he hadn’t heard that one of their team members had been killed yesterday, but he still felt the need to make comments like that. It took effort to reign in his anger, but the worst thing Arthur could do would be to call out his rude behavior. Vince’s whole purpose here was to provoke him, so he merely reminded the man of a simple fact. “Everyone was offered the same opportunity to join the team.”

Vince sneered and walked away.

Merlin glared at the man’s back, a wicked smile on his face.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“What?” Merlin gave him an overdone look of wide-eyed innocence. When it became clear that Arthur wasn’t falling for the act, he said, “You don’t even know what I was going to do.”

“I can guess. I can imagine you turning him into a toad or something.”

“Oh, come on! I only did that once.”

“You mean you’ve actually done that to someone?” He narrowed his eyes. “It wasn’t me, was it?”

“Settle down. No, it wasn’t you.  It was some baron from Essex. Or maybe he was a baronet? Either way, he was a petty little man. The incantation only lasted a few hours. It was too bad; I liked him a lot better when he was a toad. He deserved far worse.”

Arthur snickered at the mental image of Vince receiving the same treatment. “So what _were_ you thinking for our friend over there?”

“I don’t know. Rash maybe. An unpleasant burning itch in the groin?”

Arthur threw his head back and laughed. As much as he teased Merlin about his sense of humour, no one else made him laugh like this.

“He raises an interesting question though. Why _are_ you doing this? It does make more sense for members of the firearms unit to be competing in a firearms competition. And I looked into these games of yours. They have a lot of sports that aren’t even related to policing. But then you said you wanted to do that other event. Pistol whatever.”

“Police action pistol.”

“That’s the one where the competitor runs all over the place shooting different types of targets, right?” Merlin’s tone proved that he thought the whole thing was a bit silly, but Arthur nodded anyway, impressed that he’d even bothered to look into it. Police action pistol was a much more dynamic event than small bore; some of the courses even included moving targets.

“But you’re a detective; you don’t even carry a gun, and that’s very specific training.”

“I wasn’t always going to be a detective. After deciding against the military, I was planning on joining the firearms unit.” Arthur could feel his cheeks pinking up at having to explain to Merlin how he’d floundered for so many years trying to find his place in the world. “It’s selective though. They don’t just take anyone. I did a lot of practice.

“Owen, that’s what he wants to do. He just doesn’t have enough experience yet. He was the first to volunteer for the team. Garrett, he was up for anything. He liked a new challenge. Isabel has been in competitions like these before. I suppose the three of us will have to discuss whether we should replace Garrett’s position or withdraw from the team competition.” He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that right now. He’d come here to clear his mind.

“Well come on then, Merlin. It’s your turn.” He offered the rifle to Merlin, barrel pointed toward the ground and breech flag in the chamber to prove it was unloaded.

“Me? I don’t need to learn to shoot.”

“Yes you do. You’re the one that asked to come along tonight, remember? And if you want to continue to be around me when I’m working with guns, you should know the basics. That includes how to shoot.” That wasn’t the only reason he wanted Merlin to learn, but it did seem like the one that Merlin would most likely accept.

Merlin groaned.

“No stalling. I taught you how to use a sword and a shield and now I’m going to teach you to use a gun too.”

Merlin snickered. “When did you _ever_ teach me to use a sword and shield?”

“I made you practice all the time.” He wasn’t completely certain that was true, but he could remember a couple of occasions and feeling as if everything happening was commonplace.

“That wasn’t _practice_. That was you picking on me.”

“How else were you going to learn to defend yourself? I couldn’t exactly train you with the knights now could I? When we met, your mace skills were terrible. I’d even say non-existent.”

“Of course they were; I was a peasant.”

“Yes, a peasant with a cocky mouth that was going to run you afoul of someone who wouldn’t let you off easy like I did.”

“You’re honestly trying to tell me you did all that just so I could learn to defend myself? I’m not buying it. A man might be able to learn to protect himself with a shield by holding one, but you also made me hold those damn hoops for your lance work. There’s no way _that_ was meant to teach me defense.”

“No, that teaches a different skill, Merlin, but still one that can save your life because facing down a charging horse _is_ a good way to learn to keep your eyes open when confronting an enemy.”

Merlin shook his head ruefully. “I should have known that was your view on things, what with your ridiculous notion of ‘friendly slaps and horseplay.’”

Arthur raised an eyebrow. The way Merlin said the words, they sounded like a euphemism for something not so innocent when Arthur knew that what Merlin was referring to was merely childish roughhousing.

After a reminder to treat the gun as if it were always loaded and to keep his finger well away from the trigger until he was ready to fire, Merlin reluctantly accepted the rifle. He looked very awkward, standing there with the rifle held away from his body like it might go off at any second.

“Have you never fired a gun before?”

Merlin paused. “You know, I’m not sure. If I have, it was a long time ago. Maybe when they were first invented?”

“How can you not know?”

“I’ve got a lot of stuff kicking around up here.” He tapped his index finger to his head.

“You remember me and Camelot just fine.”

“Yeah.” Merlin frowned and looked at the floor, mumbled, “I remember the important things.”

Arthur frowned too. Sometimes Merlin seemed perfectly fine, his usual self. Others, he radiated a deep sadness that Arthur couldn’t prevent from seeping under his skin too. He moved the conversation back to shooting, showed Merlin how the sights work, how to load the cartridges, and how to stand—feet shoulder width apart and perpendicular to the line of fire, left arm snug against his side, elbow at his hip.

“You need to lean back just a little and tilt your hips.”

“My hips?”

“You want to support the weight of the rifle with your bones, not your muscles. To do that, you need to have your left forearm, hip, and leg all in alignment.”

When Merlin only made a strange, confused sound, Arthur manhandled him into place.

“Are you sure this is right? It’s awkward.”

“No, it’s perfect. Try to memorize how it feels.”

Merlin didn’t acknowledge the instruction.

“Have you got it?”

“Geez, Arthur. _Yes_. I got it.”

“Okay, then go ahead and line up your sights like I told you.”

“Which circle am I supposed to be aiming at again?”

“The upper two are for sighting. Try one of those first.”

Merlin pressed his right cheek to the cheek piece and closed his left eye. The barrel of the rifle wavered in the air.

“I can’t get it to hold steady.”

Arthur chuckled. “Did you think it was going to be easy?”

Merlin mumbled, “I hate this already,” under his breath.

Arthur forced himself to suppress a grin. Merlin would stop taking direction if he heard the amusement in Arthur’s voice. “Time your shot after an exhale. You’ll be steadier when your lungs are empty. When you’re ready, move your finger to the trigger and pull straight back. But before that, there’s just one last thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Your ears.” He pointed to the earmuffs currently left loose around Merlin’s neck.

“Oh, right.” Merlin carefully pointed the barrel toward the ground and set his hearing protection back in place.

Arthur was watching his expression carefully and noticed the exact moment when Merlin realized he was now completely out of the position that he’d worked for the last few minutes to get right. He looked over to Arthur and Arthur had to contort his face, jutting his lower lip out in an exaggerated frown, to keep from laughing. He quirked his eyebrows up in challenge. Merlin claimed he’d memorized the position after all.

Merlin rose to the occasion and set about adjusting his feet, turning his torso, leaning back just slightly and canting his hip to be in line with his forearm. “Well?”

Arthur put his ear plugs back in and gestured toward the target.

A few seconds later, Merlin fired. Arthur checked the target with the spotting scope that stood off to Merlin’s right. “A six. Not bad for your first try. Not good either, but—”

“Hey!”

“Now try again.”

Merlin huffed and said, “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” as he reloaded the rifle.

Arthur’s phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but it was likely work related. “Keep going,” he said to Merlin before he stepped away to answer the call, “and _no cheating_.”

The call turned out to be from DI Holder who wanted to meet as soon as possible to review Garrett’s case. When Arthur told the man where he was, Holder said, “I’m just down the street from where you are. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

A short time later, Arthur noticed one of the range employees pointing a thin man in his late thirties in Arthur’s direction. He tapped Merlin on the shoulder before he finished reloading for his next shot. Arthur tipped his head toward the approaching man.

Merlin pulled off his hearing protection and said, “Does this mean I can be done now?”

“You make it sound like I’m forcing you do chores, Merlin. You only have a few shots left. This is supposed to be fun.”

“You always did have a strange sense of fun—killing things, bullying servants…”

“ _Fine_. Let’s pack up. You can just do a little extra next time.”

Merlin scoffed at the suggestion, and Arthur wondered if there would be a next time or if he’d pushed his luck too far and Merlin would refuse to ever come with him to the shooting range again.

As Holder past Isabel’s shooting point, he paused and stared at her a moment. Arthur wondered if maybe they knew each other, but Isabel was too engaged in her practice to notice.

They relocated to the main club room and started answering questions about how it was that they noticed that Garrett was missing in the first place. After retelling the story, Arthur offered to help with the case—unofficially of course and on his own time. “Anything you need help with. No need to tell the bosses. You’ll look like a real hero when you manage to do more work than should be possible for one man.”

Holder frowned at the offer. “Watch yourself. Investigating this case is no longer your concern.”

Holder asked several pointed questions, but kept turning his head to look out the open set of doors that separated the club room from the main entryway.

“You seem distracted,” Merlin said.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. It’s just… That beautiful woman at the shooting point next to you. Do either of you know who she is?”

Isabel was his friend. He had no interest in inflicting an unwanted suitor on her, but knew full well that she could handle herself, and it wasn’t as if he were offering an introduction.

“She’s a Specialist Firearms Officer for the central branch and part of our 50 metre, three position small bore team for the World Police and Fire Games.”

There were many men that would be intimidated by a woman with those credentials, but not Holder. He said, “Impressive,” and his focus waned even further until several minutes later he stood so abruptly that Arthur cut off his assessment of Garrett’s recent behaviour midsentence. Without a word of explanation, Holder strode out of the room. Arthur saw why. Isabel had finished her practice and was about to walk out the exit.

Arthur expected her to brush Holder off when he approached her, but instead she gave him her undivided attention.

“They’re both acting rather strangely,” Arthur said.

“That’s what it looks like when two people with a strong connection meet again in a new life. They may not remember why, but something pulls them together.”

“Huh.” Their situations were different, but thinking about it in that light, it was hard not to notice the similarities with how he’d acted when he first saw Merlin down the street last weekend.

Holder was in a much brighter mood when he returned to finish his questioning. Arthur used it to his advantage and by the time they were done, he’d talked Holder round to letting him look through Garrett’s old case files to see if he could dig up a lead.

-x-x-

Arthur stifled a yawn. “I have an eight o’clock meeting at the Crown Prosecution Service office in the morning.” Merlin had himself set up on the couch again and Arthur stood in front of him ready to head to bed.

“All right,” Merlin said, “but I’m going to get an early start looking for that nurse again tomorrow, so I won’t be here when you wake up.”

Arthur didn’t realize he was grumbling until Merlin said, “Oh, don’t be like that. You’re perfectly capable of getting yourself around in the morning. You never appreciated my wake up services anyway.”

“That’s because I like to have a lie-in whenever possible.”

“Yes, I know.” Merlin’s head angled to the side a bit. Arthur started to turn to follow Merlin’s line of sight, but his former manservant suddenly put up a hand and said, “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be able to... Rise. And. Shine!” in an over loud voice, then lowered his volume, “on your own.” 

Arthur furrowed his brow. “What are you doing?” Merlin was acting strangely. Or well, stranger than usual.

“Nothing!”

“You’re acting all shifty.”

“I’m not. Your judgement is impaired is all. You’re sleepy.”

“Hmmm.” Arthur didn’t believe that pathetic excuse for a second. Merlin was up to something.  

He reached for his pocket to set the alarm on his phone, but found it wasn’t where he’d expected. “Where’s my mobile?”

Merlin nodded sagely. “See? You _are_ tired. You don’t even remember setting your phone down. It’s right there,” Merlin pointed, “behind you.”

“Oh.” Maybe he really was too tired to think properly. It was sitting on the coffee table right there and for the life of him, he couldn’t remember taking it out of his pocket.

Before he slipped off to bed, he got back to what he’d wanted to say before Merlin distracted him with his odd behavior. “So back to the hospital again tomorrow, is it?” And as he said the words, he suddenly realized that he had no idea what Merlin had been doing the past couple of days when they weren’t together. Arthur hadn’t bothered to ask, and Merlin hadn’t volunteered. All their discussions had centered on Arthur in one way or another. He was going to have to change that, be a better friend. He should have paid more attention when Judith warned him about just this sort of thing.

“Oh, uh, no. I forgot to tell you.”

Arthur didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell me what?”

“Uh…” Merlin looked even shiftier than before.

“ _Merlin_ ,” he warned.

“The nurse quit yesterday.”

“O-kay,” he said slowly, knowing there was more to come.

“But, uh, while I was there, I might have sort of run into… Morgause.”

“ _What?!_ ” He saw a flash of a knight in full plate and the image of his mother—his real mother. There was something about an immortal army too and the imminent destruction of Camelot. Even without that, the uneasy feeling at the back of his neck told him she wasn’t an ally.

“I’m not sure it’s her… but...”

“ _Merlin!_ It didn’t immediately occur to you that ‘oh, maybe this is something Arthur might need to know?’ How long were you going to keep this a secret?”

“It wasn’t a _secret_.”

Arthur’s voice took on a false calm. “Not a secret, no.” Then he let loose, “You just weren’t going to tell me about it! You _always_ do this. You—”

Arthur watched as Merlin scrubbed the floor with a stiff bristled brush. The floor didn’t look dirty from Arthur’s position at his desk, but Merlin scrubbed and scrubbed as though he intended to wear away the very rock.

“Taken a sudden liking to cleaning my floor, have you?” Arthur joked in the hopes of ferreting out an excuse for the odd behavior.

Merlin ignored him.

Arthur rustled a few papers to make it sound like he was actually accomplishing something instead of just studying his servant. Merlin was clearly upset. He’d been in a mood all day.

The sound of brush against stone rose to a furious pace then stopped suddenly. Arthur set his papers aside, hoping Merlin had finally exhausted himself, but no. The man dragged the wash bucket closer, sending water sloshing over the side and onto the floor. Merlin didn’t even seem to notice, simply resumed his scrubbing. The noise was really beginning to irritate Arthur.

“All right, even I have to admit the floor is perfectly clean. You can stop now. Take the rest of the day off if you want.”

Merlin kept at his work, didn’t look up.

“Why don’t you just tell me what is bothering you? Maybe I can help.”

The pattern of the scrubbing sounds changed as Merlin switched from short up and down motions to big circles.

“You have another fight with Gaius?”

Merlin let out a heavy exhale. “I think I’m beginning to understand why you’re always complaining about my prattling.”

Arthur ran a hand across his forehead. “Merlin…”

“It wasn’t a fight with Gaius.”

“But—”

“Just leave it alone, all right? You don’t need to trouble yourself on my behalf. You’ve enough to worry about.”

Arthur gave up. He should have known better. Merlin never confided in him. Maybe it was the difference in their stations, maybe Merlin didn’t trust him enough, or maybe it was because Merlin had plenty of other— _better_ —friends to share his troubles with. Arthur only had Merlin. Sure, there were the knights, but he would always be their king more than anything else, no matter how many meetings of the round table they had. There was Guinevere too, but with her, he had to be a husband first and that came with its own set of responsibilities and expectations.

Arthur shook himself out of the memory to find Merlin watching him with a slightly concerned expression. Arthur opened his mouth to speak, wanting to slide seamlessly back into the conversation. He needed to learn to do that for work, but he couldn’t remember what he’d been saying.

Merlin helped him along. “I was going to tell you earlier.”

Their conversation clicked back into place in his mind. They’d been discussing Merlin’s penchant for keeping secrets. “When?”

“Yesterday. That’s why I called you, but you were at the museum and you wanted to go back to Camelot, then you were upset—rightfully so. I’m sure you still are. Then with what happened to Garrett and it was late and you already have so much going on. I didn’t want to burden you with something that might not be a big deal in the long run.”

Arthur shook his head, no longer angry, just disappointed. “You need to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Trying to protect me like that. I _really_ hate it when you keep things from me.”

“I am sorry, Arthur. I honestly wasn’t trying to hide it.” Merlin stood up, looked him in the eye, and smiled.

Arthur wasn’t sure what to do about that smile so he overcompensated, said, “What are you grinning like that for? You look deranged.”

Merlin didn’t take offense. If anything, his smile broadened. “Nothing, just… You telling me how you feel like that…”

Arthur’s chest constricted with an almost unbearable nervousness. He kept his eyes on Merlin but angled his head away and pulled his eyebrows together, bracing for the punchline. “What about it?”

“It reminds me that we’re moving forward.”

Arthur relaxed. He hadn’t needed to brace himself for that after all. In fact, Merlin’s words elicited the opposite response to what he’d been fearing, because that pull in his gut was back, the one that made him want to reach out, take a step forward, lean in… to touch, taste. Arthur forced himself to step back instead before he did something Merlin might not like.

“So… what was Morgause up to?”

“She had a baby a few days ago.”

“Oh.” Well that wasn’t at all what he’d expected. Maybe it _wasn’t_ so big a deal to be finding out late.

“She’s called Margo now… assuming it really is her.”

“Huh.” This was so strange. Wayne he could handle. He’d been an ally, maybe even a friend, and from what Merlin said, he hadn’t changed much. But an old enemy just… having a baby like a normal person instead of plotting the downfall of everything he’d ever worked for?

“It’s more complicated than that though.”

Of course.

“You know, Merlin, you keep telling me that I don’t have to do everything on my own, but that goes both ways.”

“Just trust me for now, okay? You need a decent night’s sleep more than you need anything else at the moment. I’ll explain all about it tomorrow.”

“Promise?”

Merlin nodded. “After that, we can decide what we want to do about it together.”

Together. Arthur liked the sound of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. We've got a lot of plot threads going now. I hope you're not having too hard a time keeping them all straight. This is by far the most complex story I've written so far. Luckily, we're at the point where all the threads, not just for this story but for parts 2 and 3 of the series as well, have either been introduced or at least foreshadowed.
> 
> Oh, and [here's](http://peritumshootingservices.co.uk/jackets-standard-sizes/12-peritum-entry-level-jacket.html) the jacket that I based Arthur's on. With their contrasting blocks of colors, a lot of the fancy shooting jackets remind me a bit of a coat of arms. Or maybe I'm just stretching for parallels, ahaha. ^_^


	10. Trails

For the briefest of moments, everything was perfectly ordinary. Merlin was on the far side of Arthur’s small room giving his usual wakeup call: “Rise. And. Shine!” And if there were something slightly off about the sound of his voice, about the particular way he enunciated the words, Arthur dismissed it without thought because Merlin was often strange. But then he said it again. “Rise. And. Shine!” He repeated himself over and over until Arthur realized it wasn’t Merlin at all, but the alarm on his mobile.

That sneaky little rat thought he was so clever. No wonder he had been acting all shifty last night; he’d been changing Arthur’s alarm tone right in front of him! And as if that weren’t bad enough, he must have crept into Arthur’s bedroom after he was asleep and moved the phone from his bedside table, thereby forcing him to get out of bed to silence the alarm. If only the world knew that the man they revered as the single most powerful sorcerer of all time was really just a childish prankster.

Arthur groaned as the alarm continued. “Rise. And. Shine! …Rise. And. Shine!” He didn’t want to move yet but had little choice in the matter. He couldn’t just tell his alarm to shut up already as he would if it really were Merlin in his room.

Once he was on his feet, he sped through his morning routine. He was nearly out the door when a soft snore drew him back to the couch. After messing with Arthur’s phone and making such a big deal about how he was going to be gone before Arthur woke up, Merlin lay there on the couch, still asleep, hair a ruffled mess, and one bare foot dangling off the side. Arthur supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Leave it to Merlin to sleep through his own joke.

Arthur leaned over the back of the couch, grabbed Merlin’s shoulders, gave him a shake, and yelled, “Wake up!” right in his ear. Merlin startled awake, flailing his arms and legs and giving an obscenely girly little squeal. He put his hand to his chest and took measured breaths as he calmed down.

“ _Arthur! What—_ ”

“Serves you right for your little stunt with this.” He waggled his mobile in the air. “See you after work, _Merlin_.” He slapped the man on the shoulder and left the flat with a smile on his face.

When he arrived at the CPS office, Arthur walked up to the receptionist’s desk, introduced himself, and said, “I have an audience with Gwyneth Tate.” They were meeting to discuss the Lewis case. It was set to go to trial within the next few months, and Arthur would have to give evidence.

The receptionist snickered. “She is a bit full of herself, isn’t she?”

Arthur hadn’t meant to imply anything of the sort. He’d worked with Gwyneth before and always found her to be perfectly reasonable. Confident, yes, commanding even, when the situation called for it—both good qualities in a barrister—but not arrogant. He had to replay the last few moments to realize his mistake. The wrong word had just slipped out. He tried to explain, to take it back, but the receptionist winked at him and said, “I won’t tell her you said anything.” Then she directed Arthur to one of the smaller conference rooms with the warning that Gwyneth hadn’t arrived yet.

“I’m sure she won’t be long. She’s usually in before I get here,” the woman said as she left the room.

Arthur took a seat and after a few boring minutes with nothing to occupy him but the abstract artwork on the wall, took out his phone intending to catch up on his emails. He didn’t get far.

He sprinted across the open field toward a huge tree. He’d seen some boys his age heading in this direction and when his nurse turned to pick some flowers, he’d taken the opportunity to sneak off. He was sick of playing alone in the nursery and taking a walk around the outer wall with his nurse like he was meant to be doing was hardly any better.

He stumbled to a quick stop when he reached his target, cheeks flushed and breathing hard. Two boys were climbing into the branches while a third boy remained on the ground circling the tree, roaring like a ferocious beast, and flapping his arms about as if they were wings.

The boy highest in the tree said, “Only a sword forged at the very top of the Great Tree Tower can defeat the terrible dragon!”

“Wait for me!” said the boy lower in the tree.

“No! It’s not my fault you’re so slow.”

“I want to play,” Arthur said.

The last time he’d tried to make a friend, he’d got into trouble. He still didn’t understand why it was bad to play with children that weren’t from noble families but that was what his father said. These boys wore clothes similar to his own, which meant they were probably the sons of noblemen, and there was no reason they couldn’t be friends.

The boy on the ground stopped roaring, came to an abrupt halt, and stared at him. “Ummm…”

“I could be a dragon too,” Arthur offered, grinning. “Two knights and two dragons!” He never got to play pretend like this. He’d make a good dragon. It was in his name after all.

“Sure!” Said the leader as he reached the highest part of the tree that was climbable and snapped off a small branch. “I’ll defeat both dragons!”

“Give me a chance too,” said the slower climber.

“You have to climb as high as me first.” The leader was already on his way back down with his makeshift sword in hand. The boy dropped to the ground and got his first good look at Arthur, then he was staring too. “You’re the prince. I can’t fight you, even in pretend.” Then he turned to the other boy. “Come on, you’re meant to be scary!”

Arthur frowned. He didn’t want to be treated differently just because his father was the king. All he wanted was a real friend, just one, that he could talk and play with.

The boy playing the role of the dragon picked up where he’d left off, running and growling and blowing out big breaths of pretend fire. The slower climber finally dropped to the ground with a stick of his own, gave Arthur a helpless sort of shrug, and ran over to join his friends.

Arthur stood and watched as they played, shifted his weight from foot to foot, looked behind him at the castle, then back to the boys. The two with sticks pushed and shoved each other out of the way so that they could have the chance to wave their sword at the boy playing the dragon. All three of them laughed the whole time. Arthur continued to look on, feeling more out of place with each passing minute, not knowing what else to do.

“Prince Arthur! My goodness, there you are. You had me worried sick!” His nurse had finally caught up. She dragged him away, only scolding him when they were out of earshot of the other boys.

Arthur didn’t protest when she made him promise never to run off like that again. He didn’t think the other boys even noticed him leave. He glanced back over his shoulder just in time to see the boy playing the dragon crumple to the ground with the leader’s sword held between his arm and torso. Even from this distance, Arthur could hear their shrieks of delight.

Back in the nursery, he set out some of his carved figures but never actually played with them. He felt down the rest of the day, and not even the honey cakes at dinner could cheer him up. He really would have made a great dragon.

“Oh, Mr. Craddock, I’m sorry! I got so busy I forgot you were in here waiting. You should have said something.”

Arthur looked at the time, and his eyes budged. He’d been sitting here more than two hours. He formulated a quick excuse. “It’s fine. I, uh, got wrapped up in some work on my phone. Gwyneth still isn’t in?”

“No.” The receptionist paused in thought. “It’s a bit worrying, isn’t it? I’ll go try to phone her.” A few minutes later, she was back. “No answer on her mobile, so I tried her home number and spoke with her husband. He said she left for work at 6:30 like usual. She should have been in hours ago.”

A shiver ran down Arthur’s spine. This was all a little too familiar. It might be nothing, but then again…

He dialed DI Holder. It seemed to be a fairly large coincidence for two employees of the criminal justice system to go missing within the last few days and considering what happened to Garrett…

“We’ll look into it,” Holder said after Arthur explained what was going on.

It was as much as Arthur could do for now.

-x-x-

Merlin sat in his car opposite the post office, trying to pay attention to the people coming and going. He didn’t bother with a disguise today, settling instead for a subtle spell that helped him avoid notice. It wasn’t an invisibility spell; those cause more problems than they solve in most cases. This spell had drawback of its own, like making it difficult to get someone’s attention, but Merlin wasn’t planning on talking to anyone. He just needed people to overlook him, especially considering he might be at this for several more days yet. He figured the nurse was bound to pick up her mail at least once a week.

He’d only been there an hour when his traitorous brain started distracting him, feeding him back memories from the previous night, memories of Arthur’s hands on his hips, shoulders, and lower back as he maneuvered Merlin into the proper stance for shooting. Arthur wanted him to remember what the position felt like, but what he needed to do was forget the incident entirely, because Arthur hadn’t meant anything by it. He would have done the exact same thing for anyone he was instructing.

Even as Merlin chastised himself, his imagination supplied him with an alternate scenario, one where Arthur had moved in even closer, slid one arm around so that his hand rested across Merlin’s collarbone, wrapped his other all the way across Merlin’s body to grip his opposite hip. Arthur’s chest would have been flush against Merlin’s back, and he could have dipped his head to kiss at Merlin’s neck again.

“No,” Merlin said aloud, hoping to ground himself back in reality. “He only did that once because he was confused.”

It wouldn’t be happening again. He had clear confirmation from Arthur’s behavior over the last 24 hours. Each time Merlin had foolishly allowed himself to get too close, Arthur had pulled away in one way or another. This wasn’t surprising. Merlin had no reason to be upset. He should be _happy_. Arthur was recovering enough of his memories that he was acting more like his usual self. It was a _good_ thing, but it still stung more than he thought it should.

He was lucky Arthur had been kind enough not to comment when he’d allowed himself the liberty of trailing his hand across Arthur’s back at the shooting range. The excuse he’d conjured up to explain the behaviour was weak at best. He had to be more careful from now on, couldn’t just let his fingers go wandering.

Merlin scrubbed a hand over his face.

This had never been a problem before. In the beginning, they’d struggled to admit they were even friends. By the time they’d got around to it, Arthur was already involved with Gwen. Merlin had never been jealous. He’d even encouraged them. His destiny had loomed large before him, threating to crush him at every turn. Between that and the constant stress of hiding his magic, he’d been too overwhelmed to put much thought into anything else. It wasn’t that he hadn’t known all along that he cared for Arthur, but he’d focused so much on Albion and the future that he hadn’t understood the full depth of his feelings. Not until he faced losing him—until he saw that vision of Camlann, heard the seer’s prophecy of Arthur’s bane. He could still feel that bottomless dread that came with knowing that Arthur was about to die. In the end, the one thing he’d wanted more than anything else from Arthur was his acceptance. That Arthur had given it so fully would always be his greatest treasure. But then Arthur was gone and all he’d wanted—wanted for _so_ _long_ —was to see him again, to hear his voice. To want even more now, after he’d already been given what should be impossible, felt greedy.

Sitting here ruminating was doing nothing to help matters. He needed to stand, stretch his legs, get his blood moving. He walked down to the next street and back. It didn’t seem far enough that he would miss someone coming _and_ going from the post office, but he misjudged and nearly missed her. All he saw was the swish of a long braid as the woman rounded a corner.

After rushing ahead to confirm that it really was the nurse, Merlin trailed along behind her at a safe distance. The woman walked for nearly 15 minutes, and Merlin was glad he’d decided against using the aging spell today. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to keep up with her quick pace if he’d had to deal with stiff and achy joints.

She finally came to a stop, pulled a set of keys from her handbag, and let herself into a vacant business. The shopfront bore no sign, and the display windows sat empty.

A little café sat on the opposite side of the street. Merlin entered and took a table at the front where he could see out the large windows. The restaurant was low on patrons at this time of the morning, and none of the servers noticed him.

Around 11:30, business started picking up for lunch, and an unsuspecting patron slid into the chair across from him.

“Hello,” Merlin said.

The woman let out a surprised squeak and began a string of apologies. “I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Later on, she would remember her silly mistake more than she would remember Merlin himself. She rose to leave.

Across the street, Fiona was back on the pavement, locking the door on her way out. Merlin took this as a fair sign that there was no one else in the building. “No, stay here,” Merlin said. “I was just finished anyway.”

Instead of following the nurse again, he waited until she was out of view, then walked right up to the building, and let himself through the locked door with magic.

Merlin didn’t risk turning the lights on. The thin curtains that served as the backdrop to the window displays allowed just enough sunlight in to see by as he crept about the place, making sure he was alone. Finding no one, he went back to the main room where a small contingent of mannequins guarded the empty clothing racks and disassembled shelving units that cluttered the south wall. On the opposite side of the shop, a large table held stacks of newspapers and tabloids from across Great Britain. Some articles had been cut out and sorted according to the date inked in at the upper corner of the clipping. Merlin skimmed through enough to suspect that each case had the potential to involve magic.

The papers and clippings covered all but a small space where a laptop set. The computer was still on, screen glowing brightly in the otherwise dimly lit building, the desktop wallpaper set to some generic forest scene. Merlin swiped his thumb across the touchpad to prevent the system from going into sleep mode and locking him out.  He didn’t know any spells that would allow him to guess a password.  

A large frame displaying half a dozen photos held a prominent location on the wall above the table. At the top left was the most recent looking picture. It featured a young woman in her late 20s or early 30s standing next to a boy of about 10. Beside it, the photo was a baby girl with a man and a woman, presumably her parents. Most people could probably estimate the decade each photo had been taken by the distinctive fashions, but that sort of information wasn’t important enough for Merlin to have retained with any accuracy. He sucked his hands into his sleeves, pulled the frame off the wall and opened the back. As he’d hoped, there were handwritten notes on the photos. On the newest picture it read, “Cathy MacAlister and son, Beltane 1982.”

Merlin frowned. He’d wanted to check this photo because he recognized the background. The woman, Cathy, had been smiling brightly, but that wouldn’t have lasted, not unless she were a very bad person. She was standing at the site of the infamous Beltane Massacre on the very day when dozens of people had been ruthlessly murdered for celebrating a holiday associated with magic. One of Britain’s most notorious hate groups had claimed responsibility. The government had acted swiftly, rounding up the majority of the group’s members and prosecuting all of them that they could. It had effectively killed the organization—or so everyone had thought. Was this woman one of the perpetrators or a victim?

Merlin read the notes on the remaining photos as well and found a pattern. The first four had the surname MacAlister. Before that was a wedding photo and the name changed to Blair. These photos were a family history and whatever was going on here, this was their mission, passed down from generation to generation.

He looked closely at each photo, trying to see if he recognized anyone, tired to remember if he’d known any Blairs around the time these photos were taken. No one came to mind, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Merlin returned the frame to its proper place and shifted his attention to the map of Great Britain tacked to the wall on his left. It was littered with drawing pins and little hand-written dates matching the newspaper clippings. Different coloured yarns connected select pins as though they were trying to gauge which events could have been caused by the same individual. Beside a blue pin set near Inverness, someone had written “EMRYS?” in bold, black marker. He hadn’t been that far north in ages. They were trying to track him and doing a terrible job of it. At least, they had been up until a few days ago. ~~~~

Merlin went back to the computer, searched for files modified in the last few days, and found a trove of NHS records—all patients with the first name of James. Merlin’s chest tightened. Fiona had pulled the records from the hospital database and compiled a spreadsheet, then sorted it by age, height, and weight. She was left with a list of just a few men that could be Arthur and at the top was the name James Craddock along with the address to Arthur’s flat. Merlin opened her browser history and found the last website she’d been to. It was directions to Arthur’s place. She must be on her way there right now.

He pulled out his mobile and dialed. While he waited for Arthur to pick up, he wiped his fingerprints clean, and left the building in the same condition he’d found it.

-x-x-

Arthur had wasted too much time at the CPS office to bother with a trip to Swansea today. The Walters case would just have to wait until tomorrow. He checked in with his staff instead, made sure they had enough direction to keep them moving forward on their assignments while he was out of the office. Of the three of them, only Owen was lucky enough to still be helping with Garrett’s case. He promised to keep Arthur in the loop, even though Holder had explicitly instructed everyone not to share information with people outside the team.

Arthur was busy with paperwork when he got a call from Robert. Word travels fast because the man already knew that Arthur was skipping out on a day in Swansea. He asked if Arthur wanted to meet him for lunch at the Lance & Shield.

Robert sat at the bar talking with Wayne when he arrived.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the bay office?” Arthur said as he took a seat. Leave it to Robert to get out of the personnel exchange.

“Yeah, but I was just meeting with Wayne’s boss about the gala. He’s agreed to donate bartending services.”

“Ah.” So he _hadn’t_ got out of it. For a second there, he’d seen a glimmer of hope for himself.

“So, about the gala…”

Arthur groaned. Not this again.

“Tickets go on sale at the end of next month. You’ll be coming of course. Great opportunity to fraternize with the bosses.” Arthur had never understood why it was that Robert seemed to care more about Arthur’s career than his own. It was as if he’d appointed himself Arthur’s career coach.

“ _Yes_. I’ll come.”

“And you’ll bring a date.”

“Now hang on a minute!”

“When the bosses see how much other people like you, they’ll be more apt to do so themselves. See how this works?”

Arthur groaned again, louder this time. He didn’t want to bring a date. He wouldn’t have agreed to go at all if it wasn’t for a good cause. They held the police gala every summer to raise funds for the families of the men and women that had been injured or killed in the line of duty. Garrett hadn’t been on duty when he was murdered, but Arthur still hoped that they would be sending some of this year’s funds to his family.

If it wasn’t for all that, he’d rather spend the evening at home with… Well, there was a solution, wasn’t it? Would Merlin think it strange if Arthur asked him? He might not want come as Arthur’s date, but surely he wouldn’t have an objection to being a plus one. They’d been to numerous dinners of similar importance in the past, though before Merlin had always been there to serve him. Arthur would have to make it clear that it was Merlin’s company he was after, not his service.

Halfway through his meal, Arthur’s phone rang. On the other end of the line Merlin was spouting some nonsense about medical files and staying away from his flat.

“Slow down, Merlin!” Arthur shook his head at Robert and Wayne who were both watching him with interest.

Merlin took a deep breath. “She’s on her way to your flat right now.”

“Who is?”

Merlin groaned in exasperation. Arthur knew the feeling.

“That nurse, Fiona, of course! The person I’ve been looking for all week!”

“And how do you know this?”

Merlin sped his way through an explanation that Arthur didn’t really follow. Then he said, “If we don’t do something about it right now, she’ll come back later when we aren’t suspecting it. So don’t go home until you hear from me again, all right? I’ll let you know when it’s safe.” Merlin paused. “If she’s gone by the time I get there, you might need to stay someplace else for a while.”

“I’m not afraid of this nurse.” He wasn’t going to run away from her. Not again.

“I never said you were. I’m just asking you to let me deal with it on my own.”

Something in the tone of his voice made Arthur suspicious. “Wait. How _exactly_ do you plan on dealing with it?” Without receiving even a pause in answer, Arthur knew. Magic.

In case those people really were anti-magic zealots, the last thing they needed was Merlin working some spell right under their noses. “Merlin, promise me you’re not going to…” He glanced at Wayne and Robert. “…you know, do something stupid.”

After another five minutes of arguing, the best he was able to get was a half-hearted promise to be careful.

Arthur ended his call with an overly aggressive jab of his thumb and slapped his mobile down on the bar. He was supposed to be getting back to work soon, but he was already more than half convinced that what he really needed to do was ignore everything Merlin just told him and go stop his friend from getting himself into trouble.

“What was that all about?” Robert said at the same time that Wayne said, “Something wrong?”

“That was Merlin. Uh,” he fumbled for an abbreviated version of the truth instead of an outright lie.

“Merlin,” Wayne said, “isn’t he that friend you brought with you the other night? I’m still trying to remember where I’ve seen him before.”

Gwaine pulled Merlin into a brief hug. His manservant returned the gesture, slapped Gwaine on the back, gave him a big smile, and laughed. It hardly seemed fair. Gwaine was able to be so free with his friendship, doling out affections like it was the easiest thing in the world while Arthur stood back debating whether or not it was appropriate for him to tousle Merlin’s hair like he wanted. Maybe if he weren’t king…

“James?” Robert said. “You all right, mate? Seriously, what’s going on with you lately?”

“It’s nothing. Just… Merlin says there’s some woman headed to my flat. He wants me to avoid her, thinks she might be dangerous.”

“What, like a stalker? Is she an ex-girlfriend?”

“No, just some random woman. We barely know her. She was one of Merlin’s nurses when he was in hospital. He was trying to convince me that I should find somewhere else to stay for a few days if he can’t scare her off this afternoon.”

Robert swallowed the last big bite of his club sandwich before saying, “When you say ‘I,’ you’re also including Merlin in that right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Wayne’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s living with you? I thought you hated flatmates.”

“No. I hated Joe, my last flatmate. He was a dull, bootlicking, neat-freak.”

“Having a flatmate that keeps the place clean is grounds to hate him?”

“He polished the cutlery—the _stainless steel_ cutlery—for fun while watching telly. And despite me telling him not to, he kept coming into my room and rearranging the clothing in my wardrobe.”

“Didn’t you say something like, ‘I’m never living with another person in my flat again unless they’re sleeping in my bed as well?’” Wayne cocked his head to the side and grinned. “Is this your way of telling us that—”

“That’s _not_ what I said and anyway, Merlin’s not my flatmate. He’s a friend. One who happens to be staying at my place for a while since he has business in the city.”

That brought up a topic Arthur didn’t want to consider. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that Merlin would sleep on his couch forever, but he wouldn’t just go back to his home in Knighton when this trouble with the nurse was cleared up, would he?

“I’d say you could stay with me,” Robert said, “but my flat is tiny and the missus hates overnight guests. Sorry.”

“You could stay at mine,” Wayne said, “but that’s not really solving your problem. It’s just delaying the inevitable. What you really need to do is convince this woman that you live somewhere else.” Wayne seemed to have it all worked out in his head. “She saw you visiting at the hospital, right? She knows what you look like?”

“Yeah, she’s seen me.”

“Well, then,” Wayne reached across the bar to slap him on the shoulder. “I have the perfect solution for you.”

Arthur held his breath.

“I’ll pretend to be you!”

“What?”

“Ring Merlin back. Tell him I’m coming to the rescue!”

-x-x-

Wayne’s shift would have ended after lunch anyway, but according to what Craddock told him, there wasn’t any time to spare if he wanted to beat this stalker woman to the flat. He told Tom he needed to go help a friend and the man took his place behind the bar so that Wayne could leave before his replacement arrived. Tom was great like that. Working for him didn’t feel so much like working for a boss as it did working with a friend.

His plan was simple. He had the key in his pocket, and he was just going to walk right in like the place was his. He’d convince this woman that his name was James Craddock, then she’d leave and Merlin wouldn’t have to worry about her coming round again.

As he walked up the pavement toward the little block of flats, he noticed a middle-aged man with a shaved head sitting on a bench near the stairs, watching him approach.

“Afternoon!” Gwaine said as he passed. The man turned his head to follow Wayne’s movements but gave no other reaction to the greeting.

He took the stairs up to Craddock’s flat, let himself in, then went to the window—not too close—and watched the street for the bus that Merlin claimed this Fiona character would be riding. That man on the bench seemed to be watching too. There was something off about him, but then, this whole situation was a bit strange. He texted Merlin.

          bald man @ flat  
          looks suspicious  
          neighbour?

He’d had to cajole Craddock into giving him Merlin’s number, but Merlin obviously didn’t mind. He replied right away.

          Please be careful. He might be the co-conspirator.

The stalker had an accomplice? The more he learned, the more unusual this situation became. Not that he minded. It wouldn’t be a proper adventure without a little bit of intrigue.

He reread the first bit of Merlin’s text and smiled. He didn’t have many people that worried about him. He was glad he’d decided to help. He could tell already that they were going to be good friends.

He only had to wait a few minutes for the bus to pull to a stop in front of the block of flats. Merlin’s assessment appeared to be correct because the bald man approached a skinny woman matching the description of the nurse that Craddock had given him. The man nodded his head back toward the building, then they were headed his way. Wayne turned on the telly for some background noise, settled down on the couch to wait, and noticed a pillow and a blanket tossed carelessly to the side.

So this was where Merlin was sleeping, was he? Craddock had tried to play it off like there wasn’t anything going on between them, but he’d also blushed like Wayne had never seen before. He’d secretly suspected that the two of them were sharing a bed. Maybe they were still building up to it. There was _something_ between them; Wayne could tell.

A knock came at the door. He toed off his shoes so that he looked at home and comfortable then padded over. When he opened the door, he was greeted by the two people he’d expected. He gave them both a bright smile. “Hello. Can I help you?”

“We were hoping you might be able to help us find a couple of friends of ours.” The woman tried to peek around him into the flat as if he were physically hiding the people she was looking for inside.

Wayne suppressed a laugh. Friends? These people really were up to no good. They couldn’t manage one sentence without lying.

“Merlin Nore,” the woman said.

“And James Craddock,” said the man.

“I’m James Craddock,” Wayne said. “Don’t know any Merlin bloke.”

The woman scrunched up her brow. The man stared at him as though he could tell if Wayne were telling the truth or lying using willpower alone.

Just a few seconds in and they were already suspicious of him. He really needed to sell this, make sure they wouldn’t come back. A sudden idea struck and he almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it.

“What’s this about? I don’t know you from somewhere, do I?” He made a show of scrutinizing their faces. “You know, you do look a bit familiar. Why don’t you come in and we can get this whole thing sorted?” He couldn’t actually let them inside in case Craddock had any photos of him or Merlin lying around, but it wasn’t going to come to that. “I was just about to take a shower but you can wait while I do that, right?”

He took a step back, peeled off his shirt, and received the first real reaction from the man. He looked at Wayne as if he’d lost all sense.

“Don’t be shy.” His hands went down to the waistband of his jeans to pop the button out of its hole. He grabbed hold of the zipper.

The woman’s eyes went wide. “Ah, no,” she said. “We must have the wrong address.”

“Well, good luck,” Wayne said. “Hope you find your friends.”

Before the door could finish swinging shut, Wayne heard the woman say, “We’ll check the other addresses.”

“We’ll find them,” the man said. “We have to.”

Merlin was right about these people. There was something dangerous about them. They were so serious, as if the world were going to end if they didn’t get what they wanted.

-x-x-

Arthur arrived home that evening to find Merlin and Wayne talking and laughing as they stocked his kitchen cupboards. Maybe he had an unpleasant look on his face, but Arthur hadn’t been there more than a few seconds when Wayne said, “Well, time for me to be off.” He clapped Merlin on the arm and whispered to Arthur on the way out, “I like him. I think you should keep him,” as though Merlin were some sort of stray animal.

Arthur had a reply ready but Wayne was out the door before he could voice it.

“Wayne was nice enough to help me carry home some shopping while you were at work.”

Arthur huffed. “I could have done that.”

“I’m not saying you couldn’t, but now you don’t have to.” Merlin smiled at him as though Arthur were supposed to be pleased that Merlin had felt the need to enlist even more help from a scoundrel like Wayne. That was just the sort of thing Gwaine had always done though, wasn’t it? Helping Merlin out when he thought Arthur couldn’t… or wouldn’t.

Arthur looked out his window to the courtyard below where Merlin and Gwaine readied a pair of horses. Merlin claimed he was off to fetch vital supplies, but it was an obvious lie. This was the man who said things like, “I swear I’ll protect you or die at your side.” He’d always followed Arthur everywhere. Even when it wasn’t expected. Even when Arthur had explicitly forbidden it.

Now it was nearing the eve of what may well be the single most important battle of his reign and Merlin was leaving him. He refused to tell Arthur where he was going, but it couldn’t be too secret if he was willing to take _Gwaine_ with him.

Arthur wouldn’t force Merlin to come to Camlann if he were too scared, but Gwaine was a Knight of the Roundtable. He should call down to them right now and insist that Gwaine come fight Morgana with him and that if Merlin were so set on leaving, he’d just have to do it alone.

He let them go. He’d said enough already, said something he regretted, just because he knew it would hurt. It had been too much to hope that he might goad Merlin into changing his mind. The man was as stubborn as they came.

He felt uneasy, nervous, like he’d never felt before. It was as if a colony of wasps were nesting in his belly. It was just a quiet hum for now, but sometime soon they were going to turn against him. And damn it, when that happened, he needed Merlin to be there with him!

He tried to rationalize the feeling away. Merlin was a servant after all, not a soldier. What good could he possibly do against Morgana and her army? It didn’t help.

Maybe this was what Merlin’s funny feelings felt like. He always seemed to get them right before something bad happened.

He stood at the window until Guinevere pulled him away for a meeting with his advisors. Somehow, he’d stupidly expected Merlin to come riding back through the gates.

“Hey, Merlin?” Arthur said, finding his friend had somehow managed to usher him into a chair at the kitchen table while he was busy reliving his past. “Before Camlann you rode off somewhere with Gwaine. Where did you go?” _What was so important that you left my side when I needed you most?_ He must have had a good reason. Arthur understood that now.

Merlin didn’t seem to mind the question, and so while he cooked dinner, he told Arthur of Morgana’s attack on his magic and how he’d been healed at the Crystal Cave.

Arthur offered to help with the cooking, but Merlin insisted that his help would be more of a burden, told him he could do the washing up instead. He wasn’t satisfied with that, didn’t feel fully comfortable in that moment just sitting around being taken care of. He got up and started setting the table.

Merlin finished his story by saying, “I never wanted to leave you. You know that, right?”

Arthur stopped in the middle of reaching into the cupboard for the plates. Merlin really needed to stop saying these sorts of things—telling him how devoted he was or how special Arthur was. He wasn’t sure if it felt wonderful or terrifying. He turned around to find Merlin watching him, waiting for his answer.  

He said, “yeah,” because he really did understand, but an ugly thought crept in beside that certainty. “Gwaine… did he know about your magic?”

Merlin laughed, and Arthur’s heart instantly felt lighter for it. “Gods, no! If I’d told him, the whole town would have known within the week. Not that I think he’d betray the secret intentionally, but he wasn’t very good at whispering when he’d been drinking. And besides, he’d have been asking me to help him win at dice every other night.”

Arthur let out a ghost of a laugh, then said, “Gaius knew. Was there anyone else?”

“No, not really. I mean, the druids knew, though I’m still not entirely sure how. That includes Mordred, of course.”

“He’s the one who betrayed you to Morgana.”

“Yes.” Merlin paused in thought. “And Lancelot knew.”

“ _Lancelot?_ ”

“But not because I told him,” Merlin rushed to explain. “He just overheard me working a spell. I suppose if you had better ears you might have caught on sooner too.”

“My _hearing_ is fine!”

Merlin held his hands up in front of him in surrender. “Arthur, I chose to tell you because it was important to me that you know. I’ve never felt that way about anyone else.”  

And there was that feeling again. He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I was such a fool. You kept trying to tell me. Hinting. Even when we first met. You said you didn’t need to land a blow to defeat me. I thought you were a brazen fool. How could I have been so blind?”

“It’s not your fault Arthur.”

“That’s not true.”

“You thought magic was evil. Of course you’d never suspect me of being a sorcerer.”

“Don’t make excuses for me.” 

“It’s not an excuse; it’s documented fact. There have been numerous studies. The brain is an efficient filter. It helps you find what you’re looking for, but blinds you to everything else.”

“You’re citing research to me now?”

Merlin shrugged. “It’s not so different from what I’ve always done. One of us has to keep informed and let’s face it, you were always too busy putting your life in danger. But then, I am more suited to the task anyway.”

He knew better than to ask, but he did anyway. “And why is that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m the more intelligent of the two of us.”

“Merlin?”

“Yes, Arthur?” Merlin started to giggle even as he said the words, ruining Arthur’s chance at a retort.

Arthur shot him a glare as he set two glasses of water on the table.

“ _That_ look,” Merlin said between giggles, “is called mock annoyance. Next thing you know you’re going to be telling me to—”

“Shut up, Merlin,” he said, giving the words a petulant edge. The laughter stopped so abruptly, Arthur worried Merlin had taken his comment too seriously. “What’s wrong?”

He had returned to the kitchen by then, needing only to grab the flatware from the drawer beside the cooker to finish his self-appointed chore. The kitchen wasn’t a large space and Merlin stepped to the side, probably thinking to get out of Arthur’s way, not yet familiar enough with the layout of the space to realize that he’d just moved right in front of the drawer Arthur needed. And so they stood there, blocking each other’s way for far longer than was appropriate.

“Nothing, just… I really have missed you, missed this.”

Arthur was close enough to see the little flecks of green and brown in Merlin’s otherwise blue eyes and he was reasonably convinced by now that things between them had never been quite like _this_ before. He really needed to know when these feelings were going to stop. They were getting to be a bit of a problem. All this talk jumbled him up inside and he had the sudden urge to tell Merlin about the hollowness he’d felt for so long living here in the modern world, tell him how it wasn’t his memories that had filled it. The words were about to spill from his lips in a sudden flood regardless of whether or not Merlin was ready to deal with them, when he noticed the other man’s posture. Merlin stood with his shoulders rigid and his hands balled into tight fists at his side. He drew in his eyebrows just slightly as if in concentration, or maybe pain.

“All right, Merlin?”

It took him a few moments to respond. “Yeah. Just a little lightheaded for a second there.”

“Then maybe you should relax a little.” Before he even realized what he was doing, he’d reached for one of Merlin’s hands. He tried to play it off as roughhousing, pulled at Merlin’s fingers and forced them to uncurl.

“There. Now isn’t that better?” he said, making use of his most condescending tone.

Merlin nodded dumbly. Maybe he was coming down with something—if he were feeling himself, he would have responded with some sort of quip, Arthur was sure—or maybe he was put off because Arthur was doing a terrible job of maintaining proper personal boundaries. He hated the idea of things being awkward between them. He needed to be a little rougher, show Merlin he wasn’t going to do anything weird again.

He prodded Merlin over to the table, put a hand on the top of his head, and pushed him down into a chair. Merlin resisted the whole way, complained as if Arthur weren’t allowed to be concerned about him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if Merlin wouldn’t complain quite so much if Gwaine were the one trying to help him.

Arthur insisted that Merlin remain seated while he finished setting the table. As they started in on dinner, he remembered to ask about Merlin’s day before they talked any more about Arthur or Camelot. He sat through a ridiculous story of Merlin’s adventure with Wayne at the supermarket and Arthur was regretting, just a little, that he’d asked.

“So,” Arthur said as he began the washing up, “about Morgause…” Merlin may have promised to explain things today, but Arthur wasn’t relying on him to bring it up. Thankfully, Merlin didn’t argue and launched into a detailed recount of his interaction with the woman called Margo.

“I didn’t know a body could live without a soul,” Arthur said when Merlin finished.

“These days it can go on for years thanks to modern medicine. It’s not really living though. There’s no chance of waking.”

“And you’re not going to do anything about it?” he said, shocked that Merlin could be so cold toward an innocent newborn.

“It’s like I said. There’s not much that can be done until we’re closer to Samhain.”

“Not much or nothing at all?”

Merlin’s tone took on a hard edge. “Nothing that’s going to fix the problem, and besides, there’s more to consider.”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that I think it’s Morgana that Margo is trying to bring back.”

“What makes you think that? She could have lived half a dozen lives between then and now, right? She could be trying to reunite with anyone.”

“I suppose, but—”

“And even if she is trying to bring Morgana back, is that really so bad? Maybe things could be different for her this time. You can’t punish someone for something they haven’t done yet and Regan hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Merlin scrubbed a hand through his hair, left stray locks sticking out in odd directions. “No, you’re right. I know you are. It’s just… hard sometimes. It was easier when I was young.” Merlin paused. He spoke slowly when he continued, as if he hadn’t yet fully convinced himself that it was a good idea to be saying the words. “You know, I had the chance to take Mordred out of the picture when he was still a boy.”

Arthur frowned, trying, but unable to imagine Merlin harming a child. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Even though he… killed you?”

“Yes.” He didn’t even hesitate.

“I don’t know if I can _ever_ forgive him.”

Arthur set down a half washed plate, dried his hands, and turned so that he could address his friend properly. Merlin’s words were so at odds with the man he knew, the man so full of compassion and forgiveness that he’d supported Arthur even after he’d made so many terrible mistakes, more than a few of which had no doubt caused Merlin himself pain.

“I think you need to, for your own sake.” It wasn’t healthy for him, carrying around that sort of bitterness all these years. “I dealt with Mordred a long time ago. As far as I’m concerned, the two of us are even. And maybe it was meant to be that way. Maybe I wouldn’t be standing here with you now if things had been different.” This time he didn’t even try to stop himself. He reached forward, put both hands on Merlin’s shoulders. “We’re moving forward, right?”

Merlin didn’t answer but seemed to relax after that. Arthur allowed himself a little self-satisfied smile. He’d finally managed to get something right.

After the washing up was finished, they went to the living room to relax and for the first time Arthur noticed the dozens of boxes stacked along the wall.

 “Oh, yeah,” Merlin said. “That detective from last night stopped by.”

“That’s a lot of boxes. I suppose Wayne helped you with those too.”

“Is that a problem?” Merlin’s expression was equal parts confusion and amusement.

Arthur shook his head. He knew he was being ridiculous. Gwaine wasn’t the one Merlin had been waiting for all this time.

“I guess I know what I’m doing next.”

Merlin insisted on helping, claiming that Arthur was going to exhaust himself working so hard. And while he disagreed with the reasoning, he wasn’t about to reject assistance. He gave Merlin an update on the case, including the missing barrister, and showed him what to look for in the files. Merlin sat on the floor, had his papers spread haphazard about his legs, while Arthur sat on the couch and kept his in neat stacks on the coffee table.

“So,” Arthur said, after hours of work, “we’ve got five cases where Garrett and Gwyneth were both involved.”

“The first is the murder of Garrett’s wife,” Merlin said, “but we know the man who did that is spending his time safely behind bars.”

“The second and fifth,” Arthur said, “were minor drug offense. Not exactly a motive for murder.”

“That leaves us with these two.” Merlin held up a pair of folders, said, “Here,” and handed Arthur one to review in more detail. He kept the other for himself.   

For the next half hour, the only sounds in the flat were the turning of pages and the muffled drone of music from the flat below them. Then Arthur said, “Listen to this. The man Garrett arrested for battery in this case got in a fight with his cell mate while in custody and lost one of his front teeth.”

“You think he murdered Garrett and pulled out his teeth in retaliation for the original arrest? That’s a bit tenuous, isn’t it?”

Arthur shrugged. “Have you got anything better?”

Merlin shook his head. “So what do we do now?”

“Considering we aren’t supposed to be looking at these to begin with, we should pass this information along and do nothing more.”

“But we’re not going to leave it at that are we?”

Arthur grinned. Merlin knew him so well. “I’m going to send this information to Holder and return the files in the morning, but let’s make copies for ourselves in the meantime.”

-x-x-

On his ride to Swansea the next morning, Arthur received an email from Gregory Walters claiming that he had reviewed every set of plans in his archive and that each one was accounted for. He attached a list of plans that had been disturbed during the break-in.

Arthur skimmed through the attachment. It included more than two dozen buildings. Most appeared to be residential, but there was also a nature center, a dentist’s office, and a project identified as the MHHM Renovation. The acronym put Arthur in mind of a law firm. He would look through the list in more detail later. He was a lot more interested for now in the message that popped into his inbox from Owen’s personal account.

Received a report of blood in a stream just a few miles from where Garrett was found. Headed to check it out now with a patrol officer. Hoping it’s not anything to do with the barrister’s disappearance.

Garrett had been held prisoner for nearly 48 hours prior to his murder. If Gwyneth really had been abducted by the same person, then assuming the killer followed the previous pattern, she should still be alive. But that was a big assumption. If the killer was escalating, shortening the window between the abduction and the murder, well… Arthur hoped the report turned out to be unrelated.

He spent the first half of his morning on administrative tasks, then pulled out the file for the Walters break-in. Before he did any more work looking for a pattern of home invasions, he was going to call the man’s daughter and ask about her key. When he finally managed to read Mr. Walters near illegible scrawl, he paused. It was too much of a coincidence. The man had spoken of an ill newborn granddaughter and here he had listed the name of the baby’s mother as Margo Walters.

What were the chances she wasn’t the very same Margo that Merlin met the other day? If she was in fact Morgause, it was hard to believe that she had nothing to do with the break-in at her father’s. Arthur dialed the number, determined to find the truth, one way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a few chapters left now - not that you would know it from the pacing. I suppose that's what the slow build tag is in there for. I feel like this is the first chapter that I'm not quite satisfied with. I hope that's just me being overly self-critical. *nervous laughter*


	11. Slipping

Arthur sat at his temporary desk in Swansea with his phone to his ear, waiting for Margo to answer. His muscles tensed as if bracing for an attack, but even if she was the woman that Merlin met at the hospital, surely she wouldn’t be able to cast magic over the phone… right? Maybe he should have asked Merlin. It was too late now. The phone on the other end had stopped ringing. A woman’s voice said, “Hello?”

He fell into work mode. “This is DS James Craddock,” and for once he was glad to be using his fake name, “with the South Wales Police, Swansea Central Station.” He’s made hundreds of calls like this in the past. There was no reason to be worried now.

-x-x-

Merlin slipped past the nurses’ station and into the NICU to see Regan. He’d been hoping for an empty room, but a man and woman stood around one of the other incubators watching their child. They glanced up when he stepped into the room, and to Merlin’s relief, said nothing.

He hadn’t planned on coming back here, but after what Arthur said last night, he at least wanted to make sure she was still stable. Even if he was never able to forgive Mordred for what he did, Arthur’s point was still valid and allowing hate and fear to control your heart was how people like Morgana lost themselves.

He didn’t try touching Regan again; he didn’t want to risk losing his breakfast. She looked much the same as she had the first time he saw her—small and frail—but all the high-tech equipment connected to her with wires and tubes was keeping her body from shutting down. He reviewed her chart and was about to leave when a woman to his left said, “More concerned than you pretend to be, aren’t you?”

Margo stepped into the room, set her handbag on a chair, and gave a respectful wave to the other parents.

Merlin was saved from having to answer her question when a light buzzing sounded and Margo pulled her mobile from her bag. She said, “Hello?” then listened to the response on the other line. Her eyes zeroed in on Merlin and she turned round and went out into the corridor for some privacy. Figuring anything Margo didn’t want him to hear might be important, Merlin made sure the other people in the room were ignoring him, then crept to the door to listen in.

He heard her say, “I’m looking at it right now,” and risked a short peek round the corner to see her looking at the far wall. Merlin ducked his head back inside the doorway in case she turned around.

“No,” she said, then a few moments later, “No.” Another pause. “I honestly can’t think of anyone that would have a reason to do such a thing.” She spoke in short, clipped syllables, like she didn’t have the patience for anything more than the absolute minimal level of civility.

Before he was able to glean much else from the conversation, the other parents started to move around like they were about to leave and Merlin had to sneak back to Regan before Margo’s call ended.

It wasn’t a minute after Margo returned to her daughter’s side that Merlin’s phone was vibrating. When he saw who was calling, he told Margo he’d be back to check on Regan again in a few days and left the ward altogether. He’d just eavesdropped on her conversation and didn’t trust her not to do the same to him.

His mobile had stopped ringing by the time he got to a safe place to answer, but he called right back, said, “What’s happened?” Arthur wouldn’t be calling during work if it wasn’t important.

“I think I might have just been talking with Morgause.” And Arthur told him about his call with Margo and the case he’d been assigned to in Swansea. Between the two of them, there was no doubt that Regan’s mother and the break-in victim’s daughter were one and the same.

“There was no damage to the door at Mr. Walters’ so the thief either picked the lock or used a key. Margo is the only person with a spare. But… I mean, she couldn’t have done it herself. She was having a baby in a different city around the time the break-in occurred. And if she really wanted something from her father’s house, she could have taken it at any time without notice.”

“Maybe she knew she’d be a suspect if something was noticed missing? She told me she had help casting the spell that put Regan in the situation she’s in.”

“You think her accomplice in that also broke into her father’s?”

Even though he knew Arthur couldn’t see him, Merlin shrugged. “It’s worth at least considering, don’t you think?”

“It would help if we knew what they were after.”

“I believe that is literally your job to figure out, _Detective Sergeant_ Pendragon. Or have you tired already of doing your own work for a change?”

“Don’t get smart with me, _Merlin_. I could leave you out of this altogether if you prefer.”

Merlin very nearly sighed with pleasure at the light banter. He could hear a smile on Arthur’s face, too, knew he’d never follow through with the threat.

“The real problem with this theory,” Merlin said before they got too far off track, “is that if Margo had an accomplice, they would have known the house was empty and that there was no need to worry about the security system. And in that case, why announce the crime by making a mess of the place?”

“I had a theory about this earlier and it only needs a few minor changes to fit our new accomplice scenario. Consider that Mr. Walters may not have told his daughter that he canceled the security system. In that case, the accomplice would have come in the house with the key and entered the code that he or she expected to disable the alarm, but nothing would have happened. They might have assumed they got the wrong code and rushed through the theft expecting the cops to show up any minute.”

Merlin hummed in consideration to let Arthur know he was listening. The theory fit the facts and was perfectly logical, but he wasn’t going to tell Arthur that. He was using his confident-bordering-on-showing-off tone. He didn’t need Merlin’s approval to know he was doing his job well and Merlin wasn’t going to needlessly inflate his ego. He’d be smug enough if it turned out that he was right.

-x-x-

Arthur typed up a summary of his conversation with Margo Walters, saved the file to the network drive, and printed himself a copy. An email popped into his inbox just as he stood to retrieve his printout from the communal printer. The message was from Owen, and Arthur sat back down hoping for an update about that report of blood in the stream. He wasn’t disappointed.

False alarm. We walked up and downstream for miles and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. No one we interviewed in the area noticed anything different either. It was probably a kid calling in a fake report as a prank.

Arthur heaved a sigh of relief, but the feeling was short lived. Just because the report came back clear didn’t mean everything was suddenly okay. Gwyneth was still missing after all, and Garrett was still dead, his murderer still on the loose. And as if that weren’t enough, he now had old enemies popping back into his life, blundering about with magic, and possibly committing crimes. He took a few minutes to settle his mind back into work.

By the time Arthur made it over to the printer, his phone log was nowhere to be seen. He sorted through the pile of unclaimed prints, then checked the printer status to make sure the contraption was working properly.

A man whose name Arthur didn’t know mumbled something about a ‘damn faulty collate button’ while franticly sorting and stapling multiple copies of some sort of financial report. Arthur eyed the growing stack of assembled reports.

“I think my phone log got mixed in with your papers.”

The man rifled through the pile and sure enough, Arthur’s print had been inadvertently stapled onto the very back of one of the handouts. The man gave the paper a rough tug and handed it to Arthur.

“Thanks,” Arthur said, his voice completely devoid of enthusiasm and conviction.

The other man rushed off without even acknowledging that he’d been spoken to.

Arthur glared at the upper left hand corner of his phone log where the staple had ripped out a little chunk of paper. Then he smiled, because he suddenly knew what he was doing wrong on the Walters case.

-x-x-

Mr. Walters’ archive was neat and organized the second time Arthur stepped into the room. Arthur explained what he was looking for and they started sorting through the plans again, this time checking for missing or damaged sheets, instead of missing sets.

Arthur started with the stack of plans that Mr. Walters had separated out as being the ones that had been disturbed during the break in. He focused on the plans of homes, hoping his previous theory was still good.

Two hours in, his fingertips were getting irritated from flipping so many pages and he still hadn’t found any suspicious damage. When he finished with the plans for houses, he moved on to the commercial and institutional buildings. These sets tended to be much thicker and Arthur flipped through one actually looking at the drawings instead of just the page numbers to give himself a short mental break.

He wasn’t quite sure how to read some of them. The floor plan was understandable enough, but there were lighting diagrams, plumbing and electrical schematics, fire suppression system details, and more. The title blocks held the names and logos of several other companies.

“It takes a whole team to design a large project like that,” Mr. Walters said when he asked about it.  

Arthur was so preoccupied with the various components of the project that he almost set the plans aside without checking the sheet numbers. When he did, he found sheets 26 through 32 were missing. According to the index on the title sheet, those pages contained electrical schematics and details.

“I think I’ve found what the thief was after. There’s several pages missing from this set of plans marked MHHM.”

“Huh,” Mr. Walters said. “Must be a black-market dealer. Maybe they have a buyer lined up for an artefact.”

“I’m not sure I follow. What does MHHM stand for?”

“Oh, it’s the Magical Heritage and History Museum. Bit of a mouthful, really. I suppose that’s why everyone calls it—”

“The Purge Museum.”

“That’s right. Owner hates the nickname, so all the consultants on the renovation project ended up using the acronym.”

Arthur’s mind was stuck in a loop. The Purge Museum… He’d just been there a few days ago and while he had noticed a police presence, he’d assumed it wasn’t anything of great importance—an accidentally tripped alarm maybe or some graffiti.

If Margo really was involved in all this, as he suspected, maybe she was looking for something to help her daughter. Not that he’d seen anything of the sort when he’d been there. It wasn’t as if they had… He stretched his mind, trying to recall the names of magical items he’d encountered in his life in Camelot. Excalibur? The Holy Grail? Those were in all the stories, but the names didn’t quite sound right anymore. He focused harder and his head began to throb. There was… the Horn of Cathbhadh—that had been an awful mess—and the Chrystal of…something? His memory refused to supply him with more than a few brief flashes—the ringing of Camelot’s alarm bell, sharp words and disappointment from his father, a man falling to the ground as Arthur wrenched his sword from the man’s belly. Even without the crystal’s name, Arthur was sure the item wasn’t at the Purge Museum—at least, not on display. Their archive could be crammed full of dangerous magical items for all he knew. They might even have something that could set off this time of great need that Merlin kept going on about.

Arthur contacted the Dyfed-Powys Police and was put in touch with DI Liam Fountaine, who was in charge of the museum case and who saw the wisdom in combining their investigations.

“I’d like to review the case with you at the museum, if that’s all right,” Arthur said.

“I can meet you there tomorrow.”

Tomorrow was Saturday and Arthur wasn’t technically approved for overtime, but that wasn’t going to stop him. They arranged a meeting time and Arthur headed home, feeling like he was finally making progress for a change. His good mood only lasted until he received an alert on his phone.

This safety alert is being issued to all criminal justice employees within the Cardiff metropolitan area. Be advised that a pattern of homicides has been detected relating to the recent death of Constable Garrett Lucas. All employees are advised to use extreme caution—

Arthur didn’t need to read the rest to know what this meant: Gwyneth was dead and her body had been found in the same condition as Garrett’s, missing teeth and all. He wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t often that he hated finding out that he was right.

-x-x-

Arthur stared out the window of the train carriage. The rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the rail numbed his senses. Around him, the bright sun of mid-morning faded away.

Moonlight streamed in through the windows as Arthur walked toward the dais, bare feet slapping gently against the wood floor. His father’s throne loomed large in his vision. All that responsibility… Sometimes it felt like he’d never be ready. This quest he was about to set off on, this would help. Help prove to the people that he was courageous enough to lead them, prove to his father that he possessed the required wisdom, prove to himself that he didn’t need anyone’s help, that he had the strength to stand on his own.

He dropped to his knees, closed his eyes. He needed to choose his quest carefully. Somewhere no one in Camelot had ever been to prove he wasn’t afraid of the unknown, something with a physical prize to serve as a lasting reminder of his achievement, and something suitably dangerous so that Merlin wouldn’t ruin everything by inviting himself along. Not that danger had ever stopped him before.  His manservant could be surprisingly brave at times. Brave and loyal. Even now when he could be getting some extra sleep or having fun at the tavern, Merlin lingered in the corridor outside the main entry doors. Arthur could feel him watching.

After what must have been hours, after the soreness in his knees from the unforgiving floor faded to numbness, an image took form in his mind. Almost like a dream, the scene played out on its own with no conscious guidance from Arthur. He wasn’t quite comfortable calling it a vision, that gave too much of an impression of mysticism and magic, but he didn’t have a better word for it.

A desolate landscape stretched out before him, a vast wasteland with not a hint of green in sight, just an array of sickly browns and reds. Even the sky looked different here and strange silhouettes glided through the air in the distance. He would have thought them birds, but they were far too large and let out terrible screams that sounded unlike any other bird he’d ever encountered.

“Wyvern,” Merlin said.

Arthur turned to his side. What was Merlin doing here in his vision? He had to do this alone. Unaided. Sure, he usually took his manservant with him everywhere he went, but that was just for entertainment. Nothing made the long, monotonous hours on horseback fly by like some nice verbal sparring with Merlin. That didn’t mean Arthur needed Merlin there with him, that he was _dependent_.

“—need to wake up now.”

“Merlin!” He hissed, as though his father would find out that his manservant had infiltrated this important rite of passage if he were too loud. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Merlin chuckled. “Pretty sure this is exactly where I belong. Good thing too, or you’d have missed your stop.”

“Ngh…” His eyes had gone dry and he blinked in rapid succession to work some moisture back into them.

“Very eloquent, Arthur. Are you back with me now?”

Arthur swiveled his head. He stood in the middle of the aisle—still on the train—with Merlin at his side gripping his elbow, urging him toward the open doors. People in their seats craned their necks to stare up at him.

“Come on, Arthur, one foot in front of the other.”

In that memory just now, he’d been desperate to keep Merlin at arm’s length. It was hard to understand why he’d ever wanted to do that. Not now, in this time, where the warmth of Merlin’s hand on his arm was an anchor to the present world, where Merlin’s very presence by his side made him feel that things were going to work out no matter how dire the situation.

Arthur did as he was told and let himself be guided until he got his bearings back.

It was a short walk to the museum from the railway station. Merlin kept close to his side, every once and a while sneaking a not so secretive peek at Arthur, as if Merlin thought he might relapse into another memory at any moment, which… Well, it was a possibility. That was part of the reason he’d agreed to let Merlin come along. He only wished the man wouldn’t be quite so conspicuous about it.

DI Liam Fountaine was waiting for them at the front museum entrance when they arrived. Arthur shook the man’s hand and said, “This is my ma—” He cleared his throat. “My…um, well, this is Merlin, my friend Merlin.” He ploughed on, hoping Liam would promptly forget his awkward mistake. “He’s always loved this sort of thing.” He waved a hand around in a vague gesture to indicate the whole museum. “You know, magic, history, things like that. So I let him tag along. Thought he could look through the museum while we do our work.”

“Ah, I get it. Because of the name, right?” Liam said, turning to address Merlin. “It’s a good day for you to be here. I hear there’s a reading of magic themed poetry at one o’clock that you might like. If we finish in time, James, you might have time to catch part of it yourself.”

“What makes you think we like poetry?” It seemed a perfectly random conjecture to make.

Liam opened his mouth to answer but didn’t have a ready reply.

Merlin ignored the topic altogether, put on his best fake smile. “James, could I have a word with you for a moment?”

“We’ll just be a second.”

Liam smiled politely, not looking the least bit offended to be excluded. “Of course.”

They moved well out of earshot, but Merlin still whispered when he spoke. “I thought I was here to keep you on track. How am I supposed to do that if I’m wandering the museum? You know I actually hate this place, right?”

“What do you expect me to do about it?  You know civilians aren’t allowed access to ongoing investigations. If it were just the two of us, I’d break the rules for you. As it is, you’ll have to wait until later when I can fill you in. In the meantime, just look around for anything suspicious, would you?”

Arthur returned to Liam while Merlin stayed where he was, stewing. Arthur turned back around, waved, and gave a cheery, “Have fun, Merlin!” with an overdone smile.

Merlin was still glaring at him when Arthur finally looked away.

They commandeered an empty office to review their notes together, then Liam showed him to the back exit where the power to the security system had been cut. Once again, the door itself had no apparent damage. From there, they went to the restricted access area where all the research was conducted and where those artefacts not on display were stored.

“As I’ve already told DI Fountaine,” the museum director cast a glare at Liam, “we haven’t found anything missing. My staff finished their cursory inventory days ago and everything was where it should be.”

When Arthur suggested that a cursory look was insufficient, the man’s eyes bulged and his face turned a distinct shade of purple. “You want us to do a _full_ inventory?! We have thousands of items in our collection and you’re asking use to count every fragment of pottery, every bead, every bone... That would take months!”

Arthur nodded. “You’d best get started then.”

When Arthur was ready to leave, he sent Merlin a text asking him to meet up front by the gift shop. He passed the time waiting by perusing the photos along the wall. He hadn’t bothered the last time he was here. There had been a group of kids in the way. It was mostly previous museum directors, but some were of prominent donors or special museum events. One in particular caught his attention. He looked closer, then pulled out his phone and sent another text.

          Get up here now.  
          There’s something you need to see.

Arthur paced the corridor for nearly 15 minutes before Merlin finally decided to grace him with his presence.

“What took you so long? I thought you would be ready to sprint out of here as soon as I was finished.”

“Sorry. I was watching that ridiculous video about the Crystal Cave. As if Queen Mab would let a bunch of nosey researchers find one of the last places in the kingdom with enough magic to sustain her presence in the mortal realm.”

“You know I don’t understand half of what you say sometimes, right?”

Merlin ignored the comment. “You wanted to show me something?” ~~~~

Arthur nodded toward the photo on the wall. It showed two men and a woman at a fundraising event. The man on the left was the museum director and Arthur didn’t recognize the woman, but the other man…

“It’s him!” Merlin said. “The man that chased us through the hospital!”

Arthur grinned. Merlin had spent all week trying to figure out who this man was and here Arthur had managed it without any effort. He pointed out the plaque at the bottom of the frame that listed the names of the people from left to right. “Lewis MacAlister. What do you suppose he was doing at a museum fundraiser? Looking for innocent magic users to harass?”

“Maybe just looking for me in particular.” Merlin paused. “You know, there was a picture of a Cathy MacAlister with her son at that old shop I told you about. It was taken at the site of the Beltane Massacre on the day the attack took place. Lewis MacAlister would be the right age to be the woman’s son.”

“I thought there were no survivors.”

“That’s what the news said at the time, but there’s always been rumors. Some say that the survivors went into hiding, others claim that some of the perpetrators got away.”

Arthur’s eyes went wide at the implication—that this man, just a boy at the time, and his family may have had a hand in one of the most notorious hate crimes in recent history.

“There’s a memorial for the victims of the massacre here. We should check to see if the woman was listed as a victim.” Merlin nodded and they headed back toward the main gallery hall.

Cathy MacAlister’s name wasn’t included on the memorial. It wasn’t proof of anything, but suddenly Arthur’s concerns about Margo seemed insignificant. Not when compared to the possibility that the man searching for Merlin was the son of one of the Beltane killers.

Arthur spent the first half of his trip home trying to review the full catalogue of the museum’s collection but a fresh headache sprouted up and the more he looked at the list, the worse the pain got. He passed the document off to Merlin who’d been reading over his shoulder the whole time and would probably do a better job of spotting potentially dangerous artefacts than Arthur anyway.

He pulled out his mobile instead, intending to do a little research. He hadn’t been too worried about the zealots before, had assumed that he could overpower them if need be, or that Merlin could use magic to protect himself now that he was fully healed. He wasn’t feeling quite so confident now.

He brought up a search box, typed in “magic haters,” and scrolled through the results. Most were news articles about specific hate crimes or blog posts with allegations of discrimination. There was the Wikipedia page for the Beltane Massacre, too, but not any links to the kinds of pages Arthur was looking for. He needed to find out how organized these groups were, how many enemies he had.

He rethought his search parameters. The zealots didn’t think of themselves as haters. They probably thought they were serving the greater good, like he had once believed when he’d followed along with his father’s views.

He deleted his old search, typed in a new phrase, “magic is evil,” and clicked on the first link in the list: savetheworldfrommagic.com.

The opening page contained an essay expounding on the threat modern day magic posed to the world at large and even referenced some supposed prophecy that the author claimed was proof that the world was going to be destroyed by magic. The author ended by urging readers to do “everything in your power to stop the spread of magic.” And even more troubling than the essay was the site’s forums with their thousands of registered users.

Merlin flipped a page and snickered. “They think they have pieces of Mordred’s sword.”

“Is that possible?” Fragments of a sword didn’t sound menacing, but considering that’s what killed him, he was inclined to be cautious.

“It’s not impossible, I guess, but they also claim to have the jewel from Sigan’s tomb, which I know for a fact it not true. And anyway, there’s a note here saying it’s offsite for analysis.”

“Oh right. They had a display case for it in their exhibit on Camelot. I hadn’t thought about it before because the case was empty.”

“Well, considering these metal fragments are the most concerning item I’ve seen on this list so far, I wouldn’t worry too much about this theft.”

The reassurance brought him little comfort; Merlin wasn’t clear through the list yet. He closed his eyes while Merlin finished, hoping to prevent his headache from getting worse.

-x-x-

Arthur was starving by the time they returned home. He sat at his table waiting for Merlin to serve him dinner and rubbed the pads of his fingers in circles across his forehead in a vain effort to soothe his still growing headache. He gave up quickly. His head hurt so much, even his fingers were starting to feel strange, and that was somehow more alarming than the pounding in his skull.

“Will Guinevere be joining me for dinner?”

The sounds of Merlin bumbling about in the kitchen halted.

“Arthur?” Merlin said, his tone strangely cautious. “Arthur, Gwen is gone.”

“Is she visiting the people in the lower town again?”

When Merlin didn’t reply, Arthur looked at him, _really_ looked. In addition to an intense, worried expression, he wore jeans and a long sleeved, checked shirt that was primarily a deep wine colour that emphasized his pale skin. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and he had the top two buttons undone so that Arthur could see a little triangle of the plain white vest underneath.

“Oh. Right.” He needed to stop making these stupid little mistakes. People were going to start thinking there was something wrong with him, Merlin first among them. Or maybe it was already too late for that. “Don’t look at me that way. I’m fine.”

Merlin turned back to his cooking and Arthur thought the matter was over. Merlin had other ideas. He waited until they’d started eating to bring it up again.

“Arthur, we need to talk.”

Those words were never a prelude to anything good. “About…?”

“Today. At the museum. You were going to introduce me as your manservant to Leon. You don’t think that’s something to be concerned about?”

“Habit, Merlin. That’s all.”

“No, it’s bigger than that. You didn’t even notice that I called the detective ‘Leon’ just now.”

Arthur scoffed, looked at Merlin as if he were the one losing his head. He spoke slowly for Merlin’s benefit. “Why would I pay any notice to that? That’s his name, Merlin.”

“No.” Merlin mirrored Arthur’s speech pattern. “His name is Liam now. You have to call him Liam.”

Appetite suddenly gone, Arthur pushed his plate away and rested his head in his hands, elbows on the table. He’d done it _again_. He just couldn’t think clearly right now.  If only he could get rid of this damn headache...

“You didn’t even recognize him at the time did you? Not consciously. Not until I just said something.”

“You spent two minutes with the man! I was around him for hours. How do you do that?”

“I don’t know.” Merlin shrugged and that strange urge to throw something at him was back again. “Practice I guess. Maybe my magic helps. Have you figured out who Robert was yet? Or your mother?”

“I’m supposed to recognize my mother now too?”

Merlin started to speak, but Arthur cut him off. “No. Don’t say another word. You can’t give me all the answers or I’ll never learn to do it on my own. That’s why you didn’t tell me before. I get it.”

“We’re getting off topic. That thing before dinner about Gwen? I’m worried about you.”

“I keep telling you—”

“And to top it all off, you’ve been massaging your forehead all afternoon. You’ve been trying to force more memories to the surface again, haven’t you?”

“It’s just a normal headache.”

Merlin raised an eyebrow, clearly not falling for Arthur’s excuses.

“I can’t just stop trying to remember, Merlin. What if the answers to these murders, or to the break-ins,” _or to why I’m feeling the way I do about you_ , “are locked inside my head? It shouldn’t be a big deal. These are _my_ memories. I don’t understand why it’s so painful.”

“You’re trying to resist the power of a goddess, of course it hurts.”

“What do you mean, ‘power of a goddess?’”

“It took me a while to place it, where I’d felt the type of magic that’s coursing through you. It’s the power of the White Goddess. She’s the one that brought you back to the mortal realm and altered your age.”

“Am I supposed to recognize that name?”

“She helped us save Gwen from Morgana’s corruption at the Cauldron of Arianrhod, but don’t—”

The place didn’t sound familiar. Concentrating on the words brought him a fresh stab of pain behind his eyes and the image of Guinevere standing hip deep in a pool of water.

“Ah, stop! You’re doing it again.”

Arthur groaned, leaned his head down to rest on the cool tabletop. He took a few deep breaths then pulled himself together and sat up straight. “You said before that the age spell and the memory problems are related. Can’t you just lift the spell completely? Then I could remember everything and I wouldn’t have to go through this mess.”

Merlin winced. “Sorry. If it was mortal magic, I could… But the magic of the gods, it’s so different from my own. I can’t risk getting it wrong.”

“I trust you.”

Merlin smiled at him, but it was a weak showing. “It’s wearing off on its own. Better to let it fade naturally.”

“I took some aspirin earlier. It didn’t help. Isn’t there _anything_ you can do?”

“Let me see.” The chair legs scraped against the floor in protest as Merlin scooted closer.

Arthur turned in his seat to face Merlin, causing their knees to bump together. He let out a long, controlled breath.

Merlin put his hands on Arthur’s head and closed his eyes, like he’d done in the car on their way to visit Judith, but this time, he took longer to do his assessment and Arthur was far more aware of Merlin’s touch. He could feel the press of each individual finger, separate and distinct from all the others.

At this distance, Arthur could see every detail of Merlin’s skin—the little mole on his forehead above his right eyebrow, the tiny cracks running down his dry lips, the stubble growing along his jaw, extending a short way down his neck to the top of his Adam’s apple. 

He put a hand on Merlin’s elbow, ran his fingers over the rough skin there. Merlin didn’t seem to mind, or maybe he didn’t even notice. He was squinting slightly, concentrating.

“ _Merlin_ …”

“Shhh,” Merlin whispered, not unkindly. Then he started speaking again, this time using words that Arthur didn’t understand. When he was done, he opened his eyes and for a split second, they were gold instead of blue.

“How do you feel now?”

Arthur took a moment to consider. “Better actually.” The pain wasn’t completely gone, but it was much more tolerable. “Thank you, Merlin.” He started to stand.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’ve got things to do, Merlin. With all that’s happened, I’ve barely had a minute for even basic household chores. The laundry is piling up, my sheets need changing, the floors need hoovering, and I haven’t even brought in the mail yet.” Not to mention that he’d let Merlin cook dinner again and Arthur couldn’t let him do the washing up too.

Merlin had a twinkle in his eye and was doing a poor job of suppressing a grin.

“Don’t laugh.”

“Do you hear me laughing?”

“Don’t lie. I know you want to.”

“You honestly don’t see an easier solution here?”

“I’m not asking a guest in my home to wash my socks. It’s rude.”

“I’m not really a normal guest though, am I? What’s the real problem here? Are you embarrassed about me seeing your pants? Because I’ve seen a whole lot more than that.” Merlin looked him straight in the eye, but he might as well have raked his eyes slowly down Arthur’s body for as flushed as his cheeks felt.

“And I’ve washed your delicates hundreds of times by hand, so—”

“That’s hardly the point. You’re not my servant anymore. What I need now is a—”

“A what?”

“Never mind.” He’d been about to say, ‘partner,’ but wasn’t sure how Merlin would respond to that.

Merlin sighed. “How about if I let you wash my things later?”

Arthur huffed an agreement. He could hardly say no. It was the sort of arrangement partners would have. ~~~~

“Good. Now, I’ll just go fetch the mail. You stay there. Rest your poor little head.”

Merlin chuckled to himself when he came back in a few minutes later carrying a short stack of envelopes. “Your neighbours are starting to think I live here.”

“Why don’t you?” Arthur blurted out before he had the chance to think about the consequences, of what he would do if Merlin said no.

“Huh?”

A sheen of sweat popped into existence on Arthur’s brow. “Live here, I mean.” It was too late to take the invitation back. “I could clear out the extra bedroom, obviously. And you wouldn’t have to get rid of your house.” He tried to school his expression, looked away as if Merlin’s answer made no difference to him.

Merlin was watching him, maybe trying to judge his sincerity; Arthur wasn’t sure.

“You just want me to help with the chores all the time.”

It was as if the thought never crossed his mind that Arthur might just like having him around, that he might need it. Arthur was beginning to suspect that he always had.

After an overly long pause, Merlin said, “You’re helping me move my things. I’m an old man, you know.”

“I wish you would stop saying that. We both know I’m two years older than you.”

“Time spent dead doesn’t count.”

Arthur laughed. “So you’re saying I’m what… 45?” He could think of no less than four ways to calculate his age and no wonder he was feeling out of sorts when he knew when he was born but still couldn’t sort out how old he was.

Merlin tossed a folded piece of paper on the table in front of him. “The rest are bills. I’m putting them on the worktop over here.” He made an exaggerated pointing motion so that Arthur could see where he meant without having to move.

Arthur reached for the paper in front of him. “What’s this?”

Merlin shrugged. “It was taped to your door.”

“You mean, ‘our door.’”

“Yeah, all right, our door.”

The corners of Arthur’s mouth twitch up but his tentative smile evaporated when he unfolded the paper. He could feel the blood draining from his face.

Merlin laughed. “What is it? Love note from your favourite neighbour?”

Arthur shook his head. Even a note from Veronica would be preferable to this. It was a simple message, one line centered at the top of an otherwise blank sheet of paper.

Send me your bite or I’ll collect it myself.

“No, it’s from the bastard that murdered Garrett and Gwyneth.”

Arthur had wondered at the killer’s choice of trophies. Now it seemed the answer was clear. He thought his victims were a threat that needed to be subdued.

But why send Arthur this note? Had the others received similar threats? They hadn’t found anything in the search of the previous victims’ effects. Not that Arthur was aware of. Did that make him special? Did it mean he was the ultimate target? If that was the case, the killer should have come straight for him. And more importantly, it meant that it was his responsibility to bring this murderer to justice.

Merlin took the paper and read it himself. “Why is he asking you to send him your bite? He means your teeth, right? As if anyone would ever do that.”

“I could do it. Get myself a nice set of dental implants.”

Merlin gave him a dry look. “Is that supposed to be a joke?” He shook his head. “And you say I’m the one who’s not funny.”

He wasn’t sure why he was trying to make jokes at a time like this. He had fresh evidence. He should be sending it straight to DI Holder.

“I don’t think he has any interest in me giving him what he’s asked for. He just wants to scare me.”

“Is it working?”

“Merlin…”

“Because it scares me.”

“You don’t think you could defeat him?”

“It’s not me I’m worried about.”

No. Of course not. Merlin never worried about his own safety. He could protect or heal himself with magic if he had to, which in his mind apparently made it acceptable to do stupid things like run out into traffic or stalk people that likely wanted him dead or fight dragons or drink poison, or… Well, the list went on and on, didn’t it? Merlin thought Arthur’d come back for some grand destiny. If anything, it seemed much more likely that he was here to keep Merlin from being an idiot.

“I can take care of myself.”

“Arthur—”

“I can. Don’t you have any faith in me?”

“Of course I do. But it’s not like before, is it? You can’t draw your sword and challenge the man to a fight. You can’t throw him in the dungeon and execute him the next morning.”

With his headache dulled for now, Arthur hadn’t expected to find himself saying, “Can’t I?”


	12. Confrontation

Every muscle in Arthur’s body ached with the need for rest. He’d never been more exhausted. He couldn’t even summon enough energy to open his eyes.

-x-x-

It felt as if he’d been sleeping for ages, but Arthur wasn’t worried. If it were time to be up, Merlin would see to it that he was. The man never let him lie in unless he was on death’s door.

-x-x-

Arthur wasn’t in his own bed. He hadn’t noticed that before, but it must be after dawn by now, and if he were in his chambers, he would be able to hear servants busting through the corridor, horses out in the courtyard, the clanging of the blacksmith’s hammer… There was none of that here. Wherever he was, it was incredibly peaceful—not even Merlin prattling away at his side. If he weren’t still a little tired, it might even be too peaceful, boring.

-x-x-

Arthur had definitely been asleep too long now. He could feel it. He wasn’t as tired as he used to be and the fact that he still didn’t know where he was had finally begun to dredge up muted feelings of alarm. Was he on campaign? A hunt? God forbid, was he being held for ransom?

Panic started to creep in. There were important things he needed to be doing—he was a king after all—and there were people he wanted to see. Merlin, assuming he wasn’t trapped in this place too, must be frantic by now. No doubt he was searching for Arthur this very moment, and… Was there anyone else? He was… married, wasn’t he? That seemed like something he should be more confident about. Arthur’s thoughts lapsed for some time and when he came back to himself, his memory was clearer. He was certain now. He _was_ married and his wife, Guinevere, would be worried about him too. He needed to get out of here.

A sudden pulling sensation tugged at Arthur’s mind—like he’d heard his name across a crowded banquet hall, and maybe the comparison was more apt than he realized because he slowly became aware of a variety of sounds. The rapid beating of tiny wings buzzing through the air around him was accompanied by the soft tinkling of melodious bells. Strange and unfamiliar voices hovered on the edge of understanding. With a bit of concentration, he was able to make out a little of the conversation.

“…making a pest of himself again.”

“If that infernal sorcerer wakes him—”

“Impossible!”

“Is it?”

It made little sense, but the voices sounded like they were all hovering above him. He considered for a moment that perhaps none of this was really happening at all. That maybe he was sick with fever, delusional.

Then there was another voice, closer, kinder. “Do you think it discourteous of him? To be disturbing your rest in this way? Or are you too worried for him to care?”

It was a woman’s voice. Not… what was her name again? His wife? Not her. Someone else.

“..thur.”

Arthur tried to sit up but every part of him, even his pinkies, felt too heavy to move. He wanted to open his mouth and speak; he couldn’t do that either.

“Ah, I should have known. Worried it is.” She sounded pleased about that. “He’s standing on the shore this very moment. Without saying a word, his heart calls out to you. Yours answers. I’m glad you feel so strongly. He deserves that.”

Arthur had no idea what she was talking about, but he had bigger concerns.

“It would be best if you could both learn to be patient.”

He was beginning to realize that there was something very wrong about this place. There was a strange emptiness here, something missing that he couldn’t quite name.

“Rest now and you will be whole again soon. Don’t worry about your other half. I will speak with him.”

“Arthur, wake up.”

Arthur didn’t want to rest. He wanted to get up, investigate, but the woman’s voice went away, the pulling sensation receded, and a wave of fresh sleep pulled him back under.

-x-x-

After noticing it that first time, that unpleasant emptiness that he could feel in his brief moments of semi-clarity never went away.

“Arthur!” The light seeping in around the edges of the curtains cast deep shadows across Merlin’s face, amplifying his grim expression. Arthur needed to pull himself together, tell him he was okay. Not to worry.

“Be at peace now, Arthur Pendragon. Your time is not yet returned. Sleep a while longer.”

That hollow ache was familiar by now. He ignored it and did as instructed, allowed himself to drift back into full sleep.

-x-x-

Arthur felt another little tug. He hadn’t felt one in a while. He tried not to respond. That woman would just be back to chide him again. It wasn’t time yet.

“ _Arthur!_ ”

Arthur had to be patient. He could do that.

“ARTHUR!” Arthur’s eyes snapped into focus for a split second, then—

Time was passing. Perhaps more time than Arthur even realized. He was beginning to suspect that time, as he knew the concept, had no meaning here. A stray thought floated through his mind: In such a place would it be possible to unwittingly rest for all of eternity?

“Wake up, damn you!”

Arthur heard a smack and brought a hand up to his cheek on reflex. The skin prickled, felt a little tender.

“Did you just slap me?” Arthur said, his voice rough.

“Sorry.” Merlin slumped to the floor, breathing heavily. He rested his forehead on the couch cushion next to Arthur’s knee. “I didn’t want to interrupt your memory, but I drifted off to sleep. When I woke and you were still… I panicked.” Merlin’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It felt like I was losing you again.”

A lump caught in Arthur’s throat and he found himself unable to verbalize a response. To make up for it, he put his hand on the back of Merlin’s head, let his fingers slide down through Merlin’s hair to his neck. Merlin turned to look up at him with open curiosity and in a moment of boldness, Arthur didn’t pull back as he’d forced himself to do before. He tried to convey what he was feeling with the intensity of his gaze and the way he dug his fingers into the tight muscles at the back of Merlin’s neck. Merlin didn’t so much as glance away, and that lump in Arthur’s throat melted down to provide nectar for the butterflies fluttering around in his stomach. During moments like this, it was hard to believe that Merlin wasn’t feeling the same way.

He’d spent the entire week trying to convince himself that these feelings weren’t real just because nothing had ever happened between them in Camelot, but he remembered enough by now to be certain that even if these feelings were new in a way, they hadn’t come out of nowhere. Merlin had always held a special place at Arthur’s side. It was no secret. Everyone had known. Guinevere, Morgana, the knights. Hell, even his father had probably known.

And why shouldn’t things be different between them now? Their whole world had changed, and it started the moment Merlin told Arthur about his magic. The barriers that had held them back for so long had crumbled in those last days together. Merlin’s lies were finally out in the open, Arthur’s prejudice against magic evaporated when exposed to the light of truth, and the social boundaries of master and servant were nothing when they were alone and facing separation. If gender had ever been a deterrent, it wasn’t anymore. Not for Arthur anyway. He didn’t have to worry about providing an heir anymore.

Arthur pressed his thumb in tight little circles against Merlin’s skin, confident in his assessment that this was merely the natural progression of their relationship. It was for him at least. As for Merlin… He was still watching Arthur, not daring to move. His muscles were tense, like he was ready to bolt away at the slightest misstep. No doubt he honestly believed what he’d said earlier. He thought Arthur was confused, had himself convinced that Arthur was longing for Guinevere. He hadn’t done himself any favours by bringing her up before dinner, and it didn’t help that Merlin’s misconceptions were reinforced by centuries of expectations.

“What time is it?” he whispered, afraid of disturbing the moment.

If Arthur didn’t make himself clear, they might never move past this point. And this was it, right here—the perfect opportunity to set the record straight.

“A little past six.”

Any thoughts of clarifying his feeling to Merlin were immediately pushed aside. “I’ve been lost in memory all night?!”

“No.” Merlin sat up. “It’s six in the afternoon. You’ve been virtually comatose all day. See now why I was so worried?”

Arthur didn’t blame him. He was worried too. Not only for himself, but also for Merlin. “Drifted off,” he’d said. Arthur took that to mean that Merlin had sat up for hours watching over him. That he’d intended to stay awake the entire time. That sleeping had been an accident. He’d probably passed out from exhaustion right there on the floor like the idiot that he was. That’s just the kind of stupidly loyal thing he would do.

Merlin climbed to his feet and fetched Arthur a glass of water before he even realized he needed it. He drained the glass in one effort.

“I think I was remembering Avalon.”

“Are you sure? I didn’t think you’d remember anything of that. You were…”

“Dead?”

“Well, yeah.”

“It wasn’t like the other memories. It was more… dreamlike, I suppose.”

“Was it at least a good dream?”

Arthur had to be careful. Merlin wanted to hear that he’d been happy, but he also wouldn’t take well to Arthur going on about the pleasures of being dead. He went with the truth.

“It was… I don’t know. I don’t think I’m meant to remember. It’s pretty vague. Mostly I just felt tired, but I also had a sense that something important was missing.”

“A beating heart maybe.”

“Maybe.” That was definitely not it.

Arthur didn’t hear a notification, but there must have been one, because Merlin suddenly pulled out his mobile and started reading something. Without looking up he said, “Your guards are changing shift.”

“Guards?”

“They’re out front in an unmarked car. DI Holder sent them over to keep an eye on you.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes. “And why would he do that?”

Merlin looked at him like he thought Arthur was the idiot. “Because of the note that maniac left on our door.”

Arthur shook his head. That wasn’t the point he was trying to make. “Tell me, Merlin, how would Holder know about that? I didn’t send him that information before I… before I had that episode.” He couldn’t prevent himself from wincing at his own choice of words.

“I sent it to him.”

Arthur had known this was where their conversation was headed. He could see the logic of it in Merlin’s mind. “Using my phone and email?”

“Text, actually.”

Arthur sighed. He really needed to start using the security features on his phone. Not that fingerprint verification would have stopped Merlin in this case.

Merlin huffed at him. “You’re not actual angry with me about that are you? You would have done it yourself if you hadn’t fallen into that time pit of a memory.”

Arthur didn’t reply.

“You’re angry because I used your phone.” Leave it to Merlin to draw the wrong conclusion. “Kings’ mobiles are state secrets or some such nonsense like that. Pesky meddlesome servants need to keep their grubby little mitts off.” And of course, now he was angry over the perceived slight.

“No, Merlin, that’s not it.”

“You don’t have to explain, Arthur, my lord.”

Arthur cringed.

“Won’t happen again. Sorry,” he said, clearly not sorry at all. “I was only thinking to keep you out of trouble with your bosses and maybe, I don’t know, stop the person that’s been killing your friends and colleagues. Prevent the same from happening to you. Ugh,” spat in disgust. “I’d forgotten how much of a complete prat you can be.” Merlin turned and started to walk away, chin up.

Arthur lurched forward to grab his arm, spun him back around. “Will you shut up for a minute and listen?!”

Merlin pressed his lips together, stared at him, waiting for the explanation that he seemed to have already decided was inadequate.

“I don’t care that you used my phone. I just… I wasn’t going to send that note to Holder.”

“But—”

“I know! All right? I know that’s not what I’m supposed to do. You don’t have to lecture me. I just… Two people have already lost their lives and I can’t help but think that this whole thing is somehow my fault. That it’s my responsibility to stop this murderer from hurting anyone else.”

“You can’t really mean to be risking the investigation.”

“I’m not. He’s coming after me next. I’m only risking myself.” Merlin didn’t like that answer if his grimace was anything to go by. Arthur tried a new strategy to appease him. “You’re not going to let anything happen to me.” It didn’t work.

“That’s no reason to take unnecessary risks.”

“What would you have me do? With Holder’s subordinates guarding this place, you realize that I’m essentially trapped in my own flat waiting for a madman to come abduct me, right?”

“Nobody is taking you anywhere.”

“Oh, I know that! I’m getting out of here on my own.”

“What? No!”

“Yes. And you’re going to help me.”

Merlin took a moment to let that sink in. “I have a feeling I’m not going to like this.”

“It’s not so bad. I’ll be safer if I don’t stick to my usual routine. And—”

“Here it comes,” Merlin groaned.

“I happen to know this bloke who should be able to fix me up with a foolproof disguise.”

Merlin stared at him for a full 10 seconds before saying, “You can’t be serious,” in a perfect deadpan.

Arthur stared right back with what he hoped was his most serious expression. Merlin probably thought he looked seriously supercilious.

“I’m the bloke?”

“Historians don’t call you a genius for nothing do they?”

Egging Merlin on seemed to be the right move. His expression morphed from genuinely irritated to playfully annoyed. “Hmm.” He pretended to consider the possibilities. “I am out of practice with the whole turn-a-man-into-a-toad business—”

“That is _not_ what I had in mind.”

“—but I’m willing to give it a go if you insist.”

“ _Merlin_ …” Arthur hoped a glare would serve as an effective motivator. Nothing else seemed to be working. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“Well I’m not letting you go alone.”

“Good, then. It’s settled.”

“How does that settle anything? What are you planning? Do you have some place in mind to hide out for a while?”

“Oh, Merlin. I thought you knew me better than that. I’m not going to run off and hide. We’re going to find whoever is responsible.”

“And how do you propose we do that? We don’t even know who we’re looking for.”

“I have an idea about that.”

“Of course you do.” Merlin didn’t sound impressed. “Let’s hear it then.”

Arthur took a moment to gather his thoughts, then laid out the facts. “A person, or persons, has targeted criminal justice employees. This person, or persons, knows where I live. Left a note on the door to scare me.”

Merlin nodded his head.

“Now consider the timing. Garrett was abducted the day after we met up on the street and I started getting my memories back. The same day, that nurse and the man from the museum photo chased us through the hospital. Later they showed up here.” He pointed to the door to emphasize his point. “Wayne said he was confident they wouldn’t be back, but maybe they weren’t as fooled as he thought.”

“You think the two situations are linked?”

“I don’t know, but I plan to find out.”

“How?”

“We’re going to ask them.”

Merlin’s eyes went wide.

“Don’t worry. We’ll be in disguise, remember? Whatever spell it is that makes you look old will suffice for both of us.

The lightning came out of nowhere. Arthur looked up to the rim of the cliff. The roar of battle faded into the background. That old sorcerer was there, staring back at him.

“What was it you called yourself?” He snapped his fingers as the name eluded him.

Arthur stood awkwardly in a small hut, bits of broken pottery crunching beneath his boots.

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes you do.”

That old man from the corridor was in Arthur chambers, standing next to his bed, and by the sound of it, casting some curse or enchantment. Arthur touched the tip of his sword to the stranger’s back. “Show yourself. Who are you?”

“…Dragoon,” Merlin mumbled.

Arthur laughed. “Yes. That’s it! It’ll be perfect.”

“That won’t work.”

“Why not? I didn’t recognize you like that so surely no one else will.”

“That was back at the beginning though, wasn’t it. These days I’m more easily recognized as an old man than a young one. I don’t think that disguise would fool Nurse Smith or Mr. MacAlister.

“You’ve been famous a long time, Merlin. Are you seriously telling me you’ve never run into this problem before?”

“Of course I have. I just don’t like the work around.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to tell you. You’re going to laugh.”

“I won’t.”

“Yes, you will.”

“I promise,” Arthur said, fully intending to follow through, but then Merlin actually told him and he found that keeping a straight face was nearly impossible.

“That was a chortle,” Merlin accused.

“Was not.”

“I can’t believe people let you get away with this sort of behaviour. You’re truly appalling, a terrible friend.”

Arthur didn’t have time to deny the charge before an odd thought occurred to him. “People are going to think we’re an old married couple.”

Merlin gave him an exaggerated frown. “Do you want me to do something else? Do you have any idea how hard it is to make you look like someone completely different without a model? I’m a sorcerer, not an artist. It’ll be a better quality product to just age your appearance.”

None of that had been Arthur’s point. He hadn’t been complaining. “Mer—”

“I suppose we could both be old ladies. It would serve you right for laughing at me.”

That wouldn’t necessarily stop people from thinking they were a couple. Arthur would have snickered if he weren’t so irritated.

“Merlin! Will you shut up? It’s fine. I don’t care.”

“You _say_ you don’t care, but—”

“I don’t! Just get on with it!”

And Merlin did. Without asking, he plucked a hair from the top of Arthur’s head, then wandered off for a minute. When he came back, the golden glow of magic was still fading from his eyes and he carried a short length of narrow twine, which he tied around Arthur’s wrist.

“The spell will break if you snap the cord, so just make sure you don’t do that until you’re ready.”

He didn’t feel any different, but when he glanced down, the skin on his hands looked ancient and his muscle tone was gone, causing his waistline to obscure the view of his belt. He went into the bathroom to check the mirror. Even knowing what to expect, he was stunned. The hair on his head was completely white and a bit limp. Age spots specked his sagged and wrinkled skin. Even his nose and ears looked different. He worked his jaw around, scrunched his nose and watched his old man skin follow along. It was all a little off-putting.

“What do you think?” Merlin leaned against the doorframe, still looking young and vibrant.

Arthur wasn’t sure he wanted Merlin to see him like this, but when his friend looked at him, he didn’t appear disgusted or startled. His expression was wistful if anything.

“I look terrible.”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind seeing what you would really look like at 80.”

“You’re just hoping I make it that far.”

“Yes.”

Arthur turned away from the mirror to face Merlin directly. He hadn’t been thinking when he’d said that. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“Never mind.” If Merlin didn’t want to talk about it, Arthur wasn’t going to make him. “Do yourself too and we can be on our way.”

By the time he was done gawking at himself in the mirror, Merlin had transformed himself into the image of a passable woman. He’d seen this face on Merlin before.

“Remember what saved your queen. Magic and sorcery.”

Merlin had been worried about his reaction, but Arthur didn’t feel amused. He felt guilt. It would never cease to amaze him that Merlin had seen fit to support him considering his ignorant view on magic for the vast duration of their time together. To disguise his discomfort, he said, “Merlin, you look ridiculous. I’m sorry, but you make an ugly old woman.”

When Merlin spoke, even the pitch of his voice was altered. “That’s not what the old man at the hospital information desk thinks.”

“Who?” Arthur’s heart lurched in his chest.

“I used this disguise when I went back to the hospital looking for that nurse, and the elderly gentleman at the information desk tried to chat me up.”

It was more difficult than usual to read his expressions with that strange face in the way, but Merlin’s tone was definitely a little smug. Was he seriously bragging about attracting some old man? Maybe Arthur shouldn’t be surprised. Merlin had always been the sort to be flattered by any attention regardless of his own level of interest. But then again, Merlin was constantly referring to himself as old.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t encourage him, if that’s what you mean.” He didn’t elaborate any further and ushered Arthur toward the door, saying, “You were the one that was so eager to do this.”

As they peeked around the edge of the doorway to make sure no one was waiting to surprise them, Arthur wondered if Merlin would go for the idea that they should hold hands to help sell their disguise. He kept the thought to himself.

The zealots were nowhere in sight, but the expected police car sat along the far side of the road. Thankfully, the doors to the flats were oriented perpendicular to the road, making it possible to leave without making his coworkers wonder why a strange elderly couple had been in Arthur’s flat.

They took a bus to the area of town where Merlin had found the zealots’ workspace, but still had a short walk to their destination. Merlin lagged behind.

“Arthur,” he hissed. “Slow down! Walk my pace.”

“You walk horribly slow.” Arthur stopped and turned around to wait for Merlin to catch up.

“Yes, old people tend to do that. And you are supposed to be one too so play the part and be glad that you don’t have to deal with the aching joints that I have.”

“What?” Arthur laughed. “Why would your joints ache?” Arthur told himself not to feel guilty if it was because Merlin had been stupid enough to fall asleep on the floor. ~~~~

“Are you not following along? I’m old!”

“I _know_ that. And obviously you can _look_ old, but you usually don’t. Your joints don’t always bother you, do they?”

“Not if I haven’t altered myself with magic, no.”

“I don’t have any aches.”

“That’s because I used a different type of spell on you. I didn’t want to risk affecting the White Goddess’s age reversal spell so I only gave you the _appearance_ of age. Which reminds me, don’t let anyone touch you. They’ll notice something is strange. For me, I’ve temporarily aged my real body. The gender thing is an illusion, like your disguise.”

“But…” Arthur tried to wrap his head around what he was saying. “You’re doing this all the time. And you say it hurts. Why would you do that to yourself?”

“It’s helpful to look old. Sometimes you get more respect. Sometimes you’re ignored. You can get away with acting odd too without people thinking anything is wrong. Plus… sometimes it just feels good to look at least somewhat as old as I feel.”

Arthur frowned. “You don’t really mean that.”

“Sometimes I do.” Merlin shrugged. “Not as much lately.”

Arthur studied Merlin’s disguise. He looked so very different. Unrecognizable except the eyes. Arthur wouldn’t mistake those anywhere.

He really was getting bolder. He reached out, ran his fingers across the back of Merlin’s knuckles, gave his whole hand a squeeze before letting go. As Merlin had said, his skin felt as wrinkled and delicate as it looked. As if Merlin were this fragile thing. Like he might break if Arthur weren’t careful.

Merlin smiled, but he didn’t look happy. “Didn’t I just say that you shouldn’t let anyone touch you? The spell—”

“You don’t count.”

He could see Merlin working up toward a rebuttal but Arthur cut off any reply by turning back in the proper direction and offering Merlin his arm for support.

Merlin stared at him as if he honestly didn’t understand the gesture. “What are you doing?”

“You said it hurts to walk. Let me help you.”

Merlin hesitated.

“I could always throw you over my shoulder if you’d prefer.”

“Yeah,” Merlin snorted. “ _That_ won’t attract attention.”

Arthur thrust his elbow closer to Merlin.

“I take your arm like that and people really are going to think we’re married.”

Arthur let out an exasperated sigh. “Merlin, people are going to think that whether you take my arm or not. I told you already, that doesn’t bother me.”

Merlin grimaced but slipped his hand around Arthur’s arm at the elbow and started walking again, taking the opportunity for all it was worth and shifting a noticeable portion of his weight onto Arthur.

Even with help, what should have been a five-minute walk stretched to ten. When Merlin finally brought them to a halt, he wasted no time in slipping his hand free from Arthur’s arm. Arthur tried not to be offended, told himself that maybe Merlin only let go so quickly because he assumed that Arthur would want him to now they weren’t moving.

Merlin pointing to an abandoned shop, said, “This is the place.”

Arthur stepped forward to knock on the door. After several minutes it became clear that either no one was in or they were refusing to answer. Arthur tried peeking through the windows with no success. The place looked abandoned from the outside.

“We can watch for them from over there,” Merlin said, gesturing behind them to a small café. “That’s what I did last time.”

They took a table by the window and sat on adjoining sides instead of across from each other so they could both watch for activity at the abandoned shop. Then they ordered a meal and ate slowly to help justify the amount of time they might need to spend waiting for their suspects.

It didn’t take long for Arthur to notice that he’d been right. Even without physical contact, people saw them as a couple. A woman at the next table over kept stealing surreptitious glances at them, a subtle smile on her face. She was probably wondering how long they’d been together. If she asked, Arthur was going to say, ‘We met when I was 20.’

After Arthur had finished with his meal, Merlin said, “Something wrong?”

“No, why?”

“You keep rubbing your fingertips together.”

“Do I?”

“Yes! You’re doing it right now!”

Arthur allowed himself a short-lived grin. Exasperating Merlin was always fun, but he didn’t want to push his luck.

He rubbed his thumbs deliberately across his fingers, his fingers over his palms. “I can’t help it. There’s something wrong with my hands. I started noticing it last night.”

The corners of Merlin’s lips turned down. “Are you in pain?”

“No, it’s…” He wasn’t sure how to describe it. “It doesn’t hurt. It just feels wrong. Weird.”

“Weird how? Numb? Stiff?”

“No…”

“Let me see.” Merlin put both hands on the table, palms up.

Arthur hesitated, kept his head still and moved only his eyes to steal a quick glance at that woman who had taken an interest in their perceived roles. “You’re not going to… you know.”

Merlin heaved a put-upon sigh. “I do have more than one skill you know. Or have you forgotten that I was trained as a physician? Come on. Squeeze my hands.”

Arthur put one hand in each of Merlin’s. His skin felt paper-thin and the tips of his fingers were cold, but his palms were warm. Arthur’s were starting to go clammy. He gave a light squeeze before he sweated all over and Merlin dropped his hands in sheer disgust.

“You can’t do any better than that?”

“Of course I can, but it feels like I could crush your bones without even trying.”

“Trust me,” Merlin said drily, “I’ll tell you to stop well before you break any bones. Try again.”

Arthur had no choice but to comply, but he increased the pressure slowly, giving Merlin plenty of time to call it off before he got hurt. It didn’t take long.

“All right. That’s good enough. There’s obviously nothing wrong with your strength or muscle control.”

Merlin turned Arthur’s hands over and scrutinized every inch, ran his fingers over Arthur’s palms, felt Arthur’s bones and ligaments, rolled Arthur’s knuckles between his fingers. Arthur wasn’t sure what he was looking for exactly, but he wasn’t about to ask. Merlin might stop.

From the next table over, that woman said, “Just look how cute they are.”

A man’s voice mumbled a reply that Arthur couldn’t make out.

“Still going out for dates at their age! Let’s be like that when we grow old.”

Merlin obviously heard too, because he pulled his hands back into his lap and cleared his throat. “Right. Well. There’s nothing wrong with your hands.” As an afterthought, he said, “Though they aren’t as rough as they used to be.”

“What?”

“You don’t have thick callouses anymore from sword work.”

Arthur stared at his hands, his jaw gone slack. “That’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“That’s why they feel strange. They feel too soft.”

“But you haven’t held a sword since... Why would you start noticing now?”

It was a valid question, and Arthur didn’t like the only explanation that came to mind. He could tell that Merlin was thinking the same thing. First those memory flashes were making him say strange things, now his body was getting in on the action too. What next?

Arthur didn’t have time to contemplate the implications any further. His mobile rang and on the other end of the line, Owen was saying, “I wanted you to know before it went public.”

Arthur did little more than listen. His hand trembled as he ended his call and set his mobile on the table.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ben’s missing. Has been all day. Since last night.” With that note, Arthur had assumed he was meant to be next. “Whoever’s done this, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Arthur!” Merlin turned to look over his shoulder before addressing Arthur again. “You can’t say things like that. Someone will hear you. They’ll think you’re serious.”

“I _am_ serious!” He wasn’t exaggerating. He longed for the weight of his sword at his hip. His whole body itched for a target. He grabbed his mobile instead.

“What are you doing?”

“Ben wasn’t involved in either of those cases we found digging through the files the other night. The only case that involved me, Garrett, Gwyneth, and Ben was the murder of Garrett’s wife.” Gwyneth had prosecuted the case while Garrett, Arthur, and Ben had all given evidence at the trial. Garrett and Arthur, as they were first hand witnesses to the crime, and Ben because he’d been one of the officers charged with guarding the prisoner while he was in hospital recovering from his gunshot wounds. Like so many hot-headed criminals before him, Brent Garr lacked the necessary self-control to make use of his right to silence. Arthur found the number he was looking for and dialed. “I’m calling the prison governor at Long Lartin.”

“Didn’t someone do that already?”

Arthur nodded. “Paul.” The phone on the other end of the line began to ring. “Maybe he didn’t ask the right questions.” It was amazing how often asking the same thing with slightly revised wording could yield a different answer.

It took several minutes to get his call directed to the right person. After he explained the situation and asked his question, the governor said, “So you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Brent Garr died in custody a few months ago. Prisoner alteration.”

Arthur was a bit stunned. He hadn’t realized just how right he’d been about asking the wrong questions, but he could see now where the mistake had been made. Paul was never going to forgive himself. However he’d worded his questions when he’d called, the person he’d spoken to had only provided information about escapees. As if the only way for Brent Garr to be involved were if he’d managed to break out of prison.

“While we don’t ever like losing a prisoner in our custody, I can’t say there are many that miss him. He was a belligerent knob, constantly causing problems.” The man paused. “Though that brother of his was sure upset enough for the whole prison.”

“Brother?”

“Came to visit every week. I had to tell him myself. His temperament was no better than his brother’s. He took a swing at me. Had to be restrained until he calmed down. Took three guards. Giant hulking man.”

“Do you have the brother’s contact information?”

“Sure. We keep that sort of information on all our visitors. It’s standard procedure.”

With a promise that the brother’s name and address would be emailed to him a soon as possible, Arthur ended the call.

“We have a lead?” Merlin said.

Arthur shared what he’d learned and a few minutes later, the email alert on his phone chimed. It wasn’t the message he’d been waiting for. It was from Leo— Liam. It was from _Liam_.

Interesting development on our case. Museum staff recently sent an artefact to a university lab for testing, but when the package arrived, the item was missing. The museum director was just informed this afternoon. And get this. He claims the artefact is part of the sword that killed King Arthur. Doesn’t seem likely to me, but maybe our thief believes it. Let’s review Monday.

Great. This was just what Arthur needed. Before he could reply to Liam’s message, another email came through. This time it was the information he’d been waiting for from the prison governor. The brother of the deceased was named Rhett and he’d listed his residence as St. Anthony Road.

Arthur mapped the address on his mobile and found the place was only a few streets over near Heath Park. He was out of his seat in a flash.

Merlin grabbed his wrist. “Where are you going?”

“Our suspect lives close by.”

“Then call DI Holder!” Merlin snapped. “He’ll send the appropriate people. They’ll be there in no time.”

Arthur shook his head. “This man might be five minutes away by foot. I’m not going to just sit here and wait while Ben’s life hangs in the balance!” He would forward Holder the address. That would have to be good enough.

“Fine, then I’m coming with you.” He pushed his chair back to get up but Arthur put a hand on his shoulder to keep him in his seat.

“No. You’re going to stay here. This man’s killed two of my people. One of them a lady of the court.” He snapped his mouth shut. He was doing it again. He had to stay calm, in control. He couldn’t forget where he was. _When_ he was.

“Arthur,” Merlin whispered. “So have I. Plus a lot more. Hundreds, probably. I don’t even know how many.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, of course it is!” Merlin had fought for him on the battlefield. Had served him as if he were a bodyguard. He wasn’t a murderer. “Stay here. Watch for MacAlister and the nurse. Even if they have nothing to do with Ben’s disappearance, they’re still up to something and I want to know what it is.” Arthur used his most commanding tone and hoped it was sufficient to convince Merlin to do as he was told for a change.

-x-x-

Merlin scrambled up from his seat, dug into his wallet for enough money to cover their meals and left without having seen the bill, rushing after Arthur as best as he could. When he stepped out onto the pavement, he was greeted with the sight of Lewis MacAlister and Fiona Smith climbing out of a green Volkswagon, completely unaware that the subject of their manhunt was just a few metres away.

He didn’t have time for them right now. He had to stop Arthur from making a spectacle of himself. People were already beginning to notice. Merlin didn’t blame them. It wasn’t everyday that a person could see an octogenarian sprinting down the pavement at full speed. He was going to end up in the tabloids.

He couldn’t use Arthur’s name. Couldn’t even call him James, not within hearing distance of Fiona and her crony. Instead he shouted, “Cabbage head! Clotpole! You’re going to get us killed! Look at what you’re doing!”

Arthur stopped, spun around, glanced down at himself, then finally caught on. His hand drifted to his wrist.

Merlin shook his head vigorously. “Not here!” He’d never have agreed to this if he’d known Arthur would be so reckless.

Arthur ducked between two buildings to remove his age enchantment and popped back out onto the pavement literally two seconds later as if he were Clark fucking Kent and expected no one to notice. They weren’t so lucky. When Merlin glanced back at the zealots. The nurse was pointing toward Arthur with one hand and tugging on her companion’s arm with the other. She looked moments away from breaking into a run.

Merlin hobbled as fast as he could to the same gap between buildings that Arthur had used, dropped the enchantments affecting his appearance and for better or worse took off at a sprint toward Arthur, who had turned left at the next intersection. MacAlister kept calling for him to stop, but that only served to spur Merlin on and each time he glanced over his shoulder, they were a little further away.

Merlin had longer legs than Arthur, but wasn’t in the habit of vigourous exercising. It didn’t take long for him to begin to feel winded. Shortly after that, a sharp pain started below his ribs on his right side. He didn’t let that slow him.

Arthur made another turn and began to slow, checking house numbers against the information on his mobile. He was pounding on a door, demanding entry by the time Merlin finally caught up.

“Arthur,” Merlin hissed as he stepped up beside him. “You shouldn’t be doing this!”

Arthur rounded on him. “Why not? I’m the king, no one can tell me what I can and can’t do.”

Merlin took a step back, eyes wide. Judging by the look of concentration on Arthur’s face, he could tell that Merlin had a reason to be so upset. He just couldn’t figure out what it might be.

Merlin had pity on him. It couldn’t be easy to suddenly have your mind awash in memories from a time long past. He tried to gently guide him back to modern thinking with a little standard police procedure. “Don’t you need someone to go round back?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin. Why would a peasant’s home need more than one door?”

“Arthur, you’re getting confused again.”

Arthur was having none of it and they were still arguing when a loud crash erupted from behind the house. They sprinted round to the back with enough time to see a large man hauling himself over the wooden fence at the back property line.

Arthur instantly altered his course to follow. When Merlin fell in beside him, Arthur pushed him back, said, “I need you to get Bedivere to safety. You’re the physician’s assistant. He might need your help.”

Letting Arthur go off on his own was the last thing Merlin wanted to do, but Arthur would never forgive him if he let one of his men die when he could have saved him and there were the zealots to worry about too.

Still, Merlin lingered, took a few steps toward Arthur. A muted thump drew his attention back to the house where the back door stood wide open. With one last look at Arthur’s receding form, Merlin dashed into the house. He’d just have to make this quick. A few minutes tops. In his current state, Arthur should be able to defend himself against one lone man for a few minutes. And Merlin would have an easy time finding him again. All he had to do was listen for the steady thrumming of the White Goddess’s magic.

Merlin followed the sound through the house to a door that was bolted shut from the outside. “Ben?” he called. “Is that you?”

There was no answer. He turned the lock and carefully stepped into the narrow room, afraid of what he might find inside. It wasn’t easy to see—the only light came from behind Merlin—but it was enough to tell that this was the bathroom, enough to make out the silhouette of a man huddled in the bathtub, knocking the back of his head against the wall at a slow, methodical pace. Merlin groped along the wall to his left for the light switch.

Ben didn’t respond right away when the light came on. It took the new information a while to process. Merlin did a quick assessment of his condition. His huddled posture wasn’t by choice. He was bound so tightly with heavy ropes that he could barely move. A gag prevented him from calling for help. His whole body shook with chills, his skin was overly warm to touch, and his head wobbled in tiny circles.

Merlin knelt beside him and removed the parcel tape that was keeping a spit soaked rag stuffed into his mouth first. “You’re all right now. It’s over.”

Ben let out a weak moan and Merlin went to work on the bindings on his legs and arms. He kept talking, just for something to fill the silence. “I’m Merlin. James’s friend. Remember me? We met at the Lance and Shield a few days ago.”

Each wrist was held tight to the ropes around his feet with a series of zip ties and Merlin had them off before he noticed the sickly, blackish discolouration of Ben’s right hand. The binding must have been tight enough to cut off blood flow and after hours without proper circulation, the appendage had begun to die. There was nothing Merlin could do about death, not even on a cellular level. Ben was going to lose a few fingers, if not the whole hand. He needed to get to a hospital now to prevent further damage.

That didn’t stop Merlin from doing what he could on his own. He laid a hand on the top of Ben’s head and whispered a general healing spell. That a least would protect the rest of his body from the septic blood now flowing back into his system from his damaged hand. Ben was out of it enough that he didn’t even notice there was a sorcerer working magic on him.

Merlin leaned against the side of the bathtub. An aging spell, two illusion spells, and now healing. He hadn’t worked this much magic in one day in ages, not to mention all that running. It was beginning to take a toll.

Ben stared back toward the door. Merlin might have dismissed it as a longing to get out of this place as fast as possible, but Merlin felt a prickling along the back of his neck and when he turned, the nurse stood blocking the room’s only exit.

“What is this?” If she was working with Garr, then she was a very convincing actress. She sounded genuinely shocked.

“Ben,” Merlin forced the man to look straight at him. “I need to you pay attention. This is important. The man who did this to you, was he working alone? Did he have any help? Any accomplices?”

Ben shook his head slowly. “Says I killed his brother. Garr.”

“I know. James has him on the run.”

“James?” His frown deepened. “Wants him dead too.”

This wasn’t news to Merlin, but it still sent a fresh wave of fear through his heart.

“You should be with him,” the nurse said. “I’ll stay and help your friend. You can trust me. I am a qualified nurse after all.”

Ben nodded his agreement. “Help James.”

Considering his circumstances, it was amazing how quickly Ben was willing to put himself at the mercy of a stranger. Merlin wasn’t quite so trusting. He still had no idea what her motives were or what she wanted with him. For all he knew, this was just some elaborate trap. He didn’t see how it could be, but traps aren’t meant to be seen beforehand. Despite all his reservations, Merlin wasn’t about to argue. Right or wrong, he left Ben in the care of his one-time nurse and raced off toward the comforting rhythm of divine magic, toward Arthur.

-x-x-

Arthur sprinted across a field of neatly kept grass. He’d never seen a field so uniformly trimmed. It was as if someone had used magic to maintain the area instead of livestock. Up ahead Rhett Garr crossed into the woods that bordered the field. A minute later, Arthur too broke past the treeline.

Arthur moved through the trees making sure to pick up his feet higher than normal to avoid tripping over roots or fallen branches. For some reason, his muscles protested the treatment. He didn’t see why. He did this all the time. Hunting. Tracking. He may be king now, but he hadn’t realized he’d got this soft so soon. He needed to find the time to be out more. People respected a capable king more than one that did nothing but sit around all day passing judgements and holding banquets. Merlin would help him arrange his schedule and Guinevere could handle court for a few hours on her own a couple times a week. She’d even volunteered to do that a few weeks ago.

He’d done as she’d recommended. Took Merlin and spent the day out in the woods hunting. He hadn’t caught much. Just a brace of hares near the end of the day. But in truth, he hadn’t really been trying until the end. He wouldn’t have bothered at all if he hadn’t needed something to show for his efforts. They’d ridden about the woods in the morning, sat beside a stream through the afternoon accomplishing nothing but talking and relaxing. He hadn’t realized how rejuvenating that would be. Hadn’t realized how much he needed the time away.

The situation now was completely different. Now the sun was setting and he was on the trail of a dangerous criminal. Rhett Garr would stand trial, then hang for his offences. There really wasn’t much else that could be done, and there was little that could sway his judgement at this point. The families of those he’d murdered would want justice and Arthur fully intended to deliver it to them.

It was a good thing he’d ordered Merlin to stay back in the village. As much as he wanted to bring the murderer to justice publicly, there was a chance—a good chance—that the man would resist, that he’d put up a fight and that Arthur would have to kill him, would be forced to dispense justice out here on his own. Merlin didn’t even like seeing him kill game for their supper, and he had a habit of getting himself into messes. Trying to find enough work to keep the man out of trouble was a chore in and of itself. He was unusually adept at finishing enough work for two or three men with plenty of time to spare for Gaius’s chores and a trip to the tavern.

Arthur slowed as he came to a place in the woods where the trail diverged. He squatted down to examine the ground for a hint that would tell him which way he needed to go. There was a fresh twig broken off the shrub on the path to the left, so Arthur sprang up and started off in that direction. He was so focused on following the trail, on the idea that the man was on the run, that it took him a second to notice when he rushed into a small clearing that the murderer was waiting for him. He stood there like a mountain—just as the jailer had described. He wasn’t simply a thick-muscled man, he was tall too. Arthur wouldn’t be able to overpower him in a contest of strength. If it came to a fight, he’d have to take him down with skill.

Garr pulled a knife from a sheath at his belt. Arthur reached for his sword and—and it wasn’t there! He had on a belt, but it wasn’t his familiar sword belt. He didn’t panic. Sir Ector trained him better than that. He looked to his surroundings for some advantage. There was a small flag on a narrow pole off to his right in the middle of a patch of grass that was even more immaculately groomed than the rest of the clearing. If he could get to it, he could break the pole and ram a piece into his enemy’s eye. That didn’t seem likely at this point. It was too far away. A sizable log laid near his feet, but even if he could heft it, it would be too cumbersome to use in a fight. That didn’t leave him with many choices. He couldn’t take this criminal out with his bare hands. His best chance would be to get the man’s knife away from him and use that.

“My brother is dead because of you,” the man said.

“Your brother is dead because he murdered an innocent woman.” What a family. His kingdom would be a better place without them.

Garr didn’t want to hear any explanation. He lunged forward, knife held out in front of him. Arthur stepped to the side. If he could get the man off balance, send him to his back, he’d be all right. The fall would daze him long enough for Arthur to get the upper hand.

It wasn’t as easy as it sounded in his head. The man was more agile than expected and didn’t have trouble keeping his footing sorted. Arthur dropped to the ground, rolled away, and grabbed a short branch that came within reach. It wouldn’t hold up to much abuse—it was little more than a stick—but if he could get in one good hit, it would be worth it, even if it only served as a distraction.

A glimpse of something white along the man’s chest drew Arthur’s eye. Despite the growing darkness, the brute noticed the attention. He paused long enough to preen, lifted a hand to pull the item up for display. The jewelry rattled, one bobble against the other. Arthur frowned at the odd behaviour, but wasn’t going to complain about the opportunity to catch his breath.

“Feeling left out that you’re not displayed here too? We can soon fix that.”

Arthur’s stomach dropped. Those were no beads. They were the man’s trophies—Geraint and Annis’s teeth. If they were in time, Bedivere’s weren’t there as well. He was still trying to estimate how many teeth were on the necklace—trying to determine if Bedivere was still alive or not—when the man resumed his attack.

“Arthur!”

Arthur grumbled under his breath. He’d told Merlin not to follow him! Leave it to his manservant to fail so utterly at such a simple command.

“Arthur!”

The murderer turned his head as Merlin’s yell got louder. Arthur took the distraction of his opponent for all it was worth and cracked the stick across the man’s face. It splintered into pieces but the man didn’t seem any worse off. He turned back to Arthur and with a roar, brought his knife up and managed to get a cut across Arthur’s left forearm. Arthur ignored the wound. If it was bad enough, he’d have Merlin sew him up after this was all over.

“Arthur! You’d better be all right, you prat!”

Merlin was making no attempt at staying quiet. Not only was he yelling at the top of his lungs, but he was also rustling every leaf and snapping every twig in his way by the sounds of it. And with the continued bellowing of the brute in front of him, there was no way that Merlin wasn’t going to be stumbling into this clearing in the next minute. He’d have to be deaf not to be able to locate them. If Merlin came in at the wrong angle though, Garr could have a clear line on him and there’d be nothing Arthur could to do to protect him.

Arthur listened, judged the direction from which Merlin was coming, then circled until he was sure that Merlin would be entering the clearing behind him. But that wasn’t good enough. He wanted this out of the way before Merlin arrived. He rushed forward, used his injured arm to push his enemy’s dominant hand—and with it the knife—out to the side, balled his other fist, and with much force as he could summon, slammed it into his opponent’s gut. Arthur had to tip his head back to watch for his opponent’s reaction to the blow.

The man grunted, but quickly overpowered Arthur’s injured arm and managed a second wound, this time a stab at Arthur’s shoulder, just below the clavicle. He knew he was bleeding, but wasn’t sure if he needed to be concerned or not.

Merlin’s rustling grew louder and moments later, Arthur could feel the man’s presence behind him. Arthur was forced to sidestep again to avoid another hit and Merlin, the idiot, didn’t follow along. Instead, he stepped forward as if to help.

“Stay back! I can handle this, Merlin.”

“You don’t even have a weapon.”

Arthur was too busy dodging a knife to respond.

“What about this?”

“Now’s really not the time for—”

“Heads up.”

Somehow Merlin had managed to find a staff and he was tossing it to Arthur. When he caught it, it wasn’t what he expected. It was clearly made of wood, and yet… “Where on earth did you get this? It weighs a ton.”

“Don’t exaggerate. It was just lying on the ground here.”

In an unexpected surge of strength, the staff suddenly felt half the weight. Arthur would have preferred a weapon with a blade, but the extended reach of the staff more than made up for its shortcomings. In under 30 seconds, Arthur was able to land two consecutive hits—one to Garr’s gut and the other to his head. The man dropped to the ground. Arthur advanced, brought the staff back for one last, strong blow. He was too dangerous to transport back to Camelot for trial and since the man attacked him, he was perfectly justified in expediting his sentencing.

Before Arthur could swing his weapon down, Merlin moved to stand between them, his back to the murderer, arms spread wide.

“Merlin! What are you doing!? This man’s a killer! Don’t turn your back to him!”

_Arthur._

Merlin’s lips didn’t move. He didn’t say a word and yet, Arthur could hear his voice. As if Merlin were inside his head, speaking only to him. Such a thing shouldn’t be possible.

 _He can’t hurt me._ "You know why.”

Arthur didn’t know. _Yes you do. It’s magic._ That wasn’t Merlin’s voice; it was his own.

And yes. Of course. Magic. Garr must be a sorcerer. He was trying to trick Arthur by stealing Merlin’s voice.

_Don’t do this, Arthur. It’s all right now. The danger is past._

Except that the extra voice in his head didn’t feel like an intrusion. It felt… reassuring, soothing. Intimate even. It felt like Merlin, not some magic-fueled deception. Which left only one other possibility. _Merlin_ was the one using magic.

 _Of course he is. He’s done this before. It makes sense._ Or did it? A hot spike of pain shot through Arthur’s head. He stumbled, steadied himself with his staff.

“You’re not thinking clearly.”

Maybe Merlin had a point. It was getting difficult to stand, let along organize his thoughts in a coherent manner.

Behind Merlin, Garr attempted to stand. He didn’t manage, but he was never going to give up. Arthur needed to finish this before his headache completely incapacitated him. He tightened his grip on his staff and stepped forward to push Merlin out of the way. His manservant didn’t let him get any further. He held on to Arthur’s left arm, effectively preventing him from using the two-handed grip he needed to deliver a deathblow.

Arthur stood there, muscles tense, ready to attack. “Let me go, Merlin. I have to do this.”

“Listen to me.” Merlin kept a firm hold on Arthur’s forearm with one hand, but moved his other hand to grip the right side of Arthur’s neck. It was an effective restraint. With as close as he was, Arthur would have to hurt Merlin if he wanted to move. _You’re not a king anymore. Camelot is gone._ “There will be consequences.”

He didn’t know what Merlin was playing at, but he wasn’t going to allow himself to be distracted by such utter nonsense. “We don’t have time for—”

Merlin tightened his grip and stepped in close, whispered, “I’ve traveled so long to be here with you.” He paused. “And I’m tired, Arthur.” His voice waivered. “I need you to move forward with me. I can’t do it alone. Not anymore.”

Arthur’s eyes went wide. What Merlin was saying, it sounded like… Well, it wasn’t the type of thing a servant said to a king. Not a married one certainly. But Arthur knew Merlin. He would never ask anything improper of him. He broke his stare on Garr long enough to read the sincerity in Merlin’s expression. Whatever he was asking for, Arthur wanted to give.

A random thought flickered through Arthur’s head.

The skin of Merlin’s neck felt warm against his lips and he could feel as much as heard when Merlin said his name. His heart pounded with anticipation.

Arthur’s cheeks puffed out with a sudden exhale. Was that… the past? A dream? He shouldn’t be thinking this way but the sensations were so vivid… Was this what Merlin wanted too? No, that couldn’t be right. Merlin knew he was married. He would never… It must be something else.

That cool voice of reason from the back of his head chimed in again. _Guinevere is long dead._ But she couldn’t be. He’d just spoken with her this morning. _Merlin told you that you’re confused. You should believe him. He wouldn’t lie to you. Not anymore._ Anymore? Just what did that mean? Merlin couldn’t lie to save his own life.

Merlin’s grip tightened even further. He was waiting for a response.

“Tell me what you need me to do.”

Before Merlin could answer, the strength in Arthur’s legs finally gave out. Merlin shifted his grip to support him but only managed to ease his fall.

Lying on the ground should have been easier than standing. It wasn’t. His headache continued to grow and his thoughts became even more jumbled.

It wasn’t until he let go of Arthur’s arm that Merlin noticed he was wounded.

“Arthur, you’re bleeding.” Arthur could hear the worry beneath the superficial calm in Merlin’s voice. His hand was probably wet with blood from the cut on Arthur’s forearm.

Merlin’s hands swept over him with a physician’s efficiency, looking for more injuries. When he found the one on Arthur’s shoulder, he pressed the palm of his hand into the wound.

“Not worried about that,” Arthur said. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded small, weak. “It’s my head.” It felt like some invisible blacksmith was using his head as an anvil, pounding shards of white hot metal into his skull. He whimpered, tried to cover it up by saying, “Hurts too much to think clearly.” He said it because it was true, but also as a warning in case he was misreading what Merlin was asking for and did something inappropriate.

“Help me.” Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was asking Merlin to use magic. His father would be horrified.

“If I make a mistake—”

“You won’t.”

“But I—”

“You won’t.” There wasn’t much Arthur felt certain of at the moment, but he did know without a doubt that he trusted Merlin with everything. “Please.” Arthur’s voice cracked mid-word and Merlin responded with a visible wince.

“That’s cheating,” Merlin said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He gripped the sides of Arthur’s head with more pressure than was probably necessary, but the gesture did seem to help calm the trembling of his hands, and with a deep breath, he began to recite strange, foreign words, his voice growing stronger and louder as he went. Arthur wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t recognize magic when he heard it. He should be frightened, but he wasn’t.

A soft light started to form above the treetops. It grew in strength and descended straight toward him. Even squeezing his eyes shut tight, he could still see the brilliant white light through his eyelids. It lasted mere seconds, and as it faded, so did his pain.

When his vision came back into focus, it was to see Merlin staring down at him. He was panting heavily and dripping with sweat, but the crease along his brow was easing. His hands were on Arthur, one cradling his head, the other feather light over his heart.

“All right now?”

Arthur took a deep, satisfying breath. The pounding in his head, the confusion, it was completely gone and when he reached for memories of his past in Camelot, they came easily, but with the limited detail that events from long ago are meant to have.

“Thanks to you.” Arthur took Merlin’s hand and ignoring the blood, rested them together on his chest.

Merlin didn’t allow him any time to enjoy it. He slipped his hand free and moved it back up to the wound in Arthur’s shoulder. His hand was shaking again, but this time it was out of fatigue instead of worry. “Let me—”

“No,” Arthur said, pushing his hand away. “You’re exhausted. Don’t try telling me you’re not. I promise I’m not going to bleed to death.” His wording might have been a little too blunt, but there was still a dangerous man lying a few feet away. Merlin needed what strength he had left in case he needed to defend himself. The likelihood of such a scenario seemed low. Garr had rolled himself onto his back and was staring up at the sky, talking quietly to himself.

Merlin noticed where Arthur was looking. He said, “I thought I was going to have to help you dispose of a body.”

Arthur eased up into a sitting position, and supported himself by leaned back on his hands. His headache was gone, but his cuts were still there and he felt exhausted.

“You would do that?”

“Isn’t it clear by now? I’d do anything you need of me.”

Before, such a statement would have ended in a joke.

“You should be more wary than that.”

“Wary of _you_? No, I don’t think so.”

“I might ask for something you don’t want to give.” _I might want to try kissing you again._ His gaze flickered to Merlin’s lips before he could correct himself. _I might want you to do more than kiss me back._

Arthur changed the subject lest he try to make good on such thoughts right now. He said, “Did you find Ben? Is he all right?”

“I found him.”

“And his condition?”

“He’ll live.”

That didn’t sound as reassuring as it could, but it would have to do for now. ~~~~

Arthur forced himself to stand and offered Merlin a hand up, just to prove that he was all right. Merlin brushed off the assistance and climbed to his feet on his own. He didn’t quite look steady and his posture was slumped but he still tried to move in front of Arthur as the man from the museum photo stepped out from the deepest shadows of the surrounding trees. Arthur put out his good arm and held Merlin back.

“Please.” The man put his hands in front of him, palms out. “I never meant to frighten you.” As if to prove his sincerity, he lowered himself onto one knee, head down, like a man about to be knighted.

For the briefest of moments, Arthur thought the gesture was directed at him. But, that wasn’t the case. He was bowing to Merlin.

“My name is Lewis MacAlister and my sister is Fiona, but you once knew us by different names.”

Merlin ran a hand across his face. “Of course. I should have recognized you sooner.”

Arthur still had no idea who this man or his sister were, but if Merlin trusted them, then so would he.

“Our family has been searching for you for generations. We thought you would be the best way to deliver our message. I never expected to be able to deliver it directly.”

The man turned slightly to offer a small piece of paper to Arthur. “We give you this message so that you might light the way for us through the coming struggle.”

The wailing of a police siren came into hearing range and Lewis stood up. “I took the liberty of contacting the police about your assailant there,” he tipped his head toward Garr, “but I would appreciate if you neglected to mention my name.” Before Arthur could ask any questions, the man had disappeared into the woods.

Owen was the first to arrive, followed shortly by an ambulance, then DI Holder. Within ten minutes, the place was crowded with police and their support staff.

DI Holder had an abundance of questions and Arthur answered the basics while one of the paramedics bandaged his wounds. The rest were put on hold when the paramedic announced that he needed to see a doctor to close his wounds. Arthur was glad for the delay. It would give him some time to think. He needed to find a way to explain everything that had happened that didn’t betray Merlin’s secret or sound completely mad. He also didn’t want the officers that had been assigned to watch his flat to get in trouble for falling for Arthur’s disguise.

The university hospital bordered the park on the south side. It was close enough to walk, but everyone looked appalled when he suggested it. Merlin gave him a particularly nasty glare, which he returned in full force because he had no intention of riding in an ambulance when he was capable of walking into a hospital under his own power.

Noticing the tension, Owen came to the rescue with a compromise. He said, “Come on. I’ll drive you.” And when he added, “Merlin can come too, of course,” Arthur was forced to give in.

As Arthur left, the paramedics were loading Garr onto a gurney, handcuffs and leg shackles already in place. He was barely conscious and muttering to himself about how he’d seen an angel. No one took his ramblings seriously.

The hospital was a waste of time. A nurse cleaned his wounds and applied steri-strips to the cut on his forearm. He could have done that at home. Then he waited around for an hour so that a doctor could spend a whole thirty seconds stapling the wound on his shoulder closed. Merlin sat with him while he waited. When it became clear they were going to be here for a while, he unfolded the paper Lewis had given him. The message was handwritten in an elegant script.

As this great shore of ours runs dry  
And the mourners, their warnings they cry  
Heads and tails take heed  
For our hour of need  
To shelter you must say goodbye

“Merlin, what on earth is this gibberish?”

“It’s a limerick.”

“I’m not talking about the rhyming scheme, _Merlin_.”

“There’s actually more to it than that. You see—”

_“Merlin!”_

“Fine, fine. It’s a prophecy. Not a very useful one though.” Merlin snatched the paper from his hand, turned it over to make sure there wasn’t something more written on the back. There wasn’t.

“That’s an understatement. It makes no sense. Just look at the very first line. The planet is warming. Water levels are rising. I highly doubt the ocean is going anywhere. I suppose maybe they mean a lake? The one that leads to Avalon?”

“You’re thinking too literally. See here?” Merlin pointed to the third line. “That’s us, see?”

“What are we, a horse?”

“What? No! A coin.”

“Great. A coin.” Arthur rolled his eyes. “That’s so much better.”

“We’re ‘two sides of the same coin.’ That’s what they say about us.”

“Who are ‘they?’”

“You know. People. Maybe a…” Merlin hesitated, “a dragon.” He rushed to continue. “Even my mother said it once.”

Arthur wanted to ask about the implied talking dragon but he’d have to come back to it because another revelation struck him. Arthur dropped his hand onto the exam table. “You mother. Hunith, right?” He wasn’t sure why he asked. He knew for certain that he was right. He could remember the woman’s kind smile, the way she’d welcomed him into her home, the soft look in her eyes as she watched her son when he wasn’t paying attention. He’d always wondered if his own mother would have looked at him like that if she’d lived.

“What about her?”

“That’s why Judith took me in. She was your mother. Some part of her recognized me.”

“See?” Merlin gave a forced a smile. “I knew you’d work it out on your own eventually.”

“Merlin…”

“She’s not my mother anymore. My mother died a very long time ago.” Merlin stood and went out into the corridor on the pretense of seeing what was keeping the doctor so long.

Merlin hadn’t been kidding before about people from his old life finding their way to him. They were everywhere. They were his coworkers, his friends, his doctor, his neighbour, his family.

Arthur re-read the prophecy. For the first time, he considered that maybe a significant challenge really was on its way. He reminded himself that there was no sense in worrying over something he couldn’t change. They had a cheat sheet of warning signs and obscure though they were, they had to be good for something. And even more importantly, he had Merlin back at his side. Together they had once forged a great kingdom. Whatever was coming, they’d be able to handle that too. ~~~~


	13. Forward

Arthur squatted down beside the previously unused fireplace at Merlin’s house in Knighton. Merlin was coming down the stairs, carrying another box of his belongings readied for the move to Cardiff. He didn’t have all that much in the scheme of things. Besides his books, most of which were to stay here, it was clothes and other necessities. He only had a handful of personal mementos as far as Arthur could tell. He’d expected someone who’d lived as long as Merlin to have more of that sort of thing.  

He would be helping with the physical labour, except Merlin had told him that he was forbidden to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds owing to his wounds from his fight with Rhett Garr and Arthur had decided to humour him. He didn’t like the look on Merlin’s face when he thought Arthur was over-exerting himself. He’d helped earlier with the packing and some of the lighter lifting, but everything he was allowed to do was complete now.

He busied himself instead with organizing a pile of kindling beneath a few carefully arranged logs. “You’re going to have to light this for me Merlin. You don’t appear to have a lighter or matches.”

“I don’t need those.”

“I thought you might have them for show.”

“Don’t get much company here.”

Merlin stacked his box at the foot of the stairs, said, “ _forbearnan._ ” A fire sprung to life and Arthur wondered why he’d gone to the trouble of setting the kindling in the first place.

Arthur pulled a pair of chairs up to the fire. “Come and rest a few minutes. We’re not leaving until tomorrow anyway.” Arthur was finally getting to sleep in the room Merlin had prepared for him. All the dust had been cleared away and the linens were freshly laundered.

They sat quietly for several minutes, long enough for the warmth of the flames to seep into Arthur’s bones.

“I don’t understand how this could be the first fire on this hearth. Didn’t you ever get cold?”

“I can use magic for warmth.”

“But there’s something more to it than that. Just watching the flames… It’s nice. I’ve always thought so. We used to do this in my chambers in Camelot.”

“Mmm.”

“Did you grow so sick of tending fires for me that you gave up on the institution for yourself?” Arthur joked.

Merlin’s reply was much more somber. “No. It was just… lonely. Sitting here alone like we used to... It was too much.”

Arthur wanted to say something to that. Such an admission, it deserved a response.

Arthur looked away. He hated seeing Merlin like this, couldn’t even be happy himself if Merlin was down or out of sorts.

They really had come a long way. Their relationship had started as an annoyance, then they had grown to be friends, then family. Now… now they had a bond that even death couldn’t break. They’d proved it already.

Merlin had advised him to think on his time here as a reward. He still had concerns—there was that prophecy and whatever fate had in store for them, there’d been another report of blood in a local waterway and his coworkers were starting to joke about the apocalypse, and someone out there might have a piece of the sword that once ended his life—but for now, life was peaceful. With Rhett Garr in custody and justice to be delivered to the families of his victim’s, he could finally see where Merlin had been coming from. He could think about himself a little bit, about what he wanted. And what he wanted right now was to find a way to convince Merlin that he was serious. That it hadn’t been confusion that made him want to be close. The benefit gala was coming up soon. Maybe Arthur could use that to his advantage. He’d already decided to ask Merlin to come with him anyway.

It wasn’t going to be easy. Now that Arthur was in full control of all his memories, Merlin seemed more convinced than ever that Arthur’s affection for him was fraternal at most. Any time Arthur tried to initiate any sort of physical affection, no matter how minor, Merlin looked like he was holding himself back. Like he wanted the same things that Arthur did, but misinterpreted Arthur’s motives. Or maybe Arthur was the one misreading, letting wishful thinking get in the way of his judgement.

Even if Merlin didn’t feel the same way, he deserved to know how special he was to Arthur. Deserved to hear the words spoken plainly, without any coercion, under no duress. That wasn’t exactly Arthur’s area of expertise. He knew what he wanted to say—that it was all right that things hadn’t been this way before. That no relationship, no matter how strong or how old, stays the same forever. That moving forward didn’t mean they couldn’t take a different path. But actually speaking the words… That was a whole other matter.

Arthur shifted in his seat. “Merlin? Are you happy?” One of the logs on the fire made a loud popping sound and sent a burst of sparks floating up the chimney. “That is, you’re not lonely now are you?”

Merlin took a moment before responding. “You’re back in the mortal realm, beating heart and prattish attitude fully intact, no one is trying to kill us, I haven’t got some big destiny I can barely handle, and I don’t have to hide who I am from you. What’s there to be unhappy about?”

When Merlin smile at him, Arthur could almost believe it was real, but he wasn’t being fully honest. He had scars that might never heal and even though he claimed he didn’t, he worried about that prophecy.  

Arthur played along. “Good. I’m glad.” He reached across the space between them, laid a hand on Merlin’s shoulder.  Before he could pull away, Merlin’s fake smile morphed into something genuine and Arthur couldn’t help but smile back.

They might be creeping along at a snail’s pace, but wherever they were headed, they were moving forward together and for tonight, that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and sticking with me through long delays between chapters. The story will continue with Part 2, Matchmaker's Glory. I have the initial draft done, but it's very rough and I started posting another Merthur story last night, so I'll be splitting my writing time between the two. I'll add updates here every now and then if you want to track my progress.
> 
> December 29 Update - Part 2 was on the back burner for quite a while as I worked on All Along (my other Merthur fic which you should check out if you haven't already) but that's drawing to a close and I've been making slow but steady progress on the next installment of this series. It's nearing about 70% complete. I'm hoping to start posting sometime in February and updates should be pretty regular after that (I'll be trying for every other week).
> 
> October 15 Update - I've had so much going on in RL that I'm super behind on this. Just wanted to let you know that I am still working on it though. It's looking like Part 2 will be 7 chapters. I'm getting close to being half done. Can't wait until I can finally start posting this!
> 
> July 2 Update - Edits for part 2 are about 20% done. Overall it's going to be significantly shorter than part 1, so the plan is to have the whole thing nearly complete before I start posting. That will help keep the gaps between updates to a minimum.


End file.
